Despite recording that the judicious use of discretionary quota by the chief minister of West Bengal in allotting the plots in Salt Lake city from his discretionary quota has never been tested on merits by the judiciary, the Left Front has got a major relief from the Supreme Court ahead of the Assembly elections on the controversial issue as the top court preferred to close the matter. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia close the case mainly on an assurance by the Left Front government in an affidavit that a “conscious decision has been taken (by it) not to make further allotments under the discretionary quota”. However, pool of 290 plots reserved for allotment by the CM had almost exhausted during the tenure of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s predecessor late Jyoti Basu, who had made 276 allotments and the government preferred to abandoned the plan to allotting the remaining 14 plots sensing the tough stance taken by the top court. “The 14 plots will no more be treated as part of the discretionary quota,” the apex court in its judgement recorded quoting form the state’s affidavit.
“The prolonged history of this case clearly shows that in the proceedings before the HC, the merit or otherwise of the discretionary allotments made by the CM was not decided in accordance with the law,” ruled the apex court bench having Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar the other two judges, besides CJI Kapadia.
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Notice to Centre, TN in school fire
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI
Feb. 4: The Union government and Tamil Nadu were issued notices by the Supreme Court on Friday on a petition accusing the DMK-led government sitting over the report of Justice Sampath commission recommending payment of adequate compensation to the families of 94 children burnt alive in 2004 in a school in Kumbhakonam. While admitting a petition by Kumbhakonam fire tragedy victims association, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma directed sought Centre and Tamil Nadu government’s affidavits.