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Overstaying and illegal occupation of government bungalows came under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court Friday as it sought to know from the Centre as to what steps were being taken to check this rampant practice.
Acting on a letter written by former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, a bench led by Chief Justice of India R M Lodha took suo motu cognisance of the issue and issued a notice to the government. The bench appointed senior advocate Shyam Divan as amicus curiae in the case for assisting the court and sought the government’s response in five weeks.
Rai had annexed a news report, alleging that 22 former Union ministers and retired bureaucrats are illegally occupying government accommodations.
The report had named former ministers Lalu Prasad, A Raja, S M Krishna, Mukul Roy, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Subodh Kant Sahai, Mukul Wasnik, Harish Rawat and others as illegal occupiers of ministerial bungalows. The list of illegal occupiers was given by government in response to an RTI application by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal.
The RTI reply had stated Raja resigned as minister in November 2010 but retained bungalow 2-A, Moti Lal Nehru Marg. It added that Maran relinquished the post of Union minister in July 2011, Bansal resigned in May 2013, and Krishna has not been in the Union Cabinet since October 2012 but all occupied Type VII or Type VII category houses.
The unauthorised occupation of government accommodation is also in violation of the SC’s order a year ago, in which the court set a time frame of up to maximum two months to vacate the accommodation after the end of entitlement period. It also allowed use of “reasonable force” for eviction.
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