NEW DELHI: Union Minister and Congress party national media committee convenor Kapil Sibal on Sunday charged the Mulayam Singh government with using its discretionary powers to favour close relatives of judges, senior bureaucrats, police officers, industrialists and even journalists with allotment of prime property in NOIDA, a few kilometres outside the capital.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Mr. Sibal distributed a long list of names of such allottees that included 11 judges and their relatives, 44 bureaucrats or their relatives, 33 politicians and relatives of Mr. Singh himself and six pieces of land to a company.

Several "sensitive" names of allottees were disclosed by Mr. Sibal, including Sheeba Sabharwal, daughter of former Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal.

Mr. Sibal said that in response to a petition the Allahabad High Court had quashed all such allotments and directed that the Central Bureau of Investigation conduct an inquiry.

However, the Supreme Court had stayed the probe.

Mr. Sibal said he would like to "request" the judiciary to conduct a thorough in-house inquiry so that the circumstances in which these allotments were made were disclosed to the public.

He added categorically that he did not think that any public purpose was being served by Mr. Singh's government in giving preferential treatment in the matter of allotment of land to those VIPs and relatives of VIPs.

While not wanting to comment on the stay granted by the Supreme Court on the High Court order for a CBI inquiry, Mr. Sibal "humbly submitted" that on the face of it the offences committed were "cognisable" and "the law must be allowed to take its course."

He noted that in 13 cases the addresses of individuals given in these separate allotments was "the same" and payments were made for the land through the same bank. In 12 cases allotments were made to people without any addresses and in some cases allotments were made with reference to the Private Secretary of the Chief Minister.

In Mr. Sibal's view all these were possibly "benami" transactions.

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