The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a writ petition filed by an advocate challenging the discretionary allotment of 28 plots made by the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh, to the former Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, senior politicians, bureaucrats and two judges.
The court, acting on a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by Vishwanath Chaturvedi, had in 2005 restrained the allottees from transferring the plots allotted to them.
A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai dismissed the petition after senior counsel Dushyant Dave appearing for the State drew the court’s attention to the fact that the petitioner himself was allotted a plot and that he had suppressed this information.
He further said over 14,000 allotments had been made by the State government in the past. He said the petitioner had failed to pay the full money and refused to vacate the plot even after eviction proceedings were initiated. When the Bench asked counsel for Mr. Chaturvedi whether the petitioner would be willing to surrender the plot allotted to him, counsel replied there was no illegality in the allotment and it was not the issue before the court.
However, the Bench dismissed the petition saying “We are not inclined to interfere in the matter.”
The Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) in its response submitted that there was no irregularity or illegality in the allotment. In his petition, Mr. Chaturvedi alleged that the LDA had allotted land to Mr. Amar Singh under the Economically Weaker Section Scheme at the instance of the Chief Minister. He said all the allotments in a prime locality were made illegally, arbitrarily and in a corrupt manner on the instructions of the Chief Minister and his close aide. Alleging that plots were allotted to the near and dear ones of politicians and bureaucrats at a price below the market rate, he sought cancellation of the allotments.
