The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday reserved its judgement on a batch of cases filed against a resolution passed by Madurai Municipal Corporation on November 21, 2013, to allot office space at the newly constructed omni bus stand at Mattuthavani to members of a particular association without conducting a public auction.
A Division Bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and V.M. Velumani deferred their verdict without mentioning a date. During arguments, Veera Kathiravan, counsel for one of the petitioners, contended that it would only be appropriate for the civic body to conduct a public auction to ensure transparency in the allotment of 48 offices in the bus stand. “The corporation has fixed Rs.3,900 as rent for each of the 48 offices, whereas the rent for shops situated in an adjacent Mattuthavani integrated bus stand is somewhere between Rs.10,000 and Rs.15,000. The corporation would earn more money if there is a public auction,” he said.
He suggested that the auction could be held even online by calling for applications from bus operators across the State. Pointing out that the new bus stand was constructed to ease congestion at Periyar bus stand, he said the operators wanting to take space at the new bus stand must be asked to give up their allotment at the old bus stand.
G.R. Swaminathan, counsel for the corporation, contended that the basic idea behind allotting the office space through an association was to ensure that genuine bus operators got to take the space. Questioning the maintainability of the cases filed, he said one of the writ petitions had been filed in public interest by a lawyer who had nothing to do with the bus stand. “A lawyer can file PILs related to judiciary or the legal profession. But what has he to do with a bus stand. The Supreme Court has disapproved of such practice on many occasions,” he added.
He also said another case had been filed by a ticket booking agent and not a bus operator. The status of a litigant in the third case was much worse as “he was neither a bus operator nor a booking agent. He is a cab owner. The only bus operator before the court had already been allotted a shop. Therefore, he has no case at all,” Mr. Swaminathan said.
