On Friday,the Jayalalithaa government's decision to distribute freebies like laptops,grinders,fans,and livestock to various classes of people in Tamil Nadu came under the scanner of the Supreme Court,which issued notices to the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG),Centre,Election Commission (EC) besides the state. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan asked the three respondents to file their replies within two weeks and posted the matter for further hearing to September 16. The apex court,however,declined to stay the state government's move to start distribution of the freebies reportedly stated from September 15 to mark the birth anniversary celebrations of C N Annadurai. The bench passed the directions on a petition filed by a Tamil Nadu Bar advocate S Subramaniam Balaji seeking transfer of the writ petition filed on the issue by him in the Madras High Court since another petition relating to the distribution of free colour television sets by the previous DMK government was pending in the apex court. According to the petitioner,competitive populism resorted to by political parties was unconstitutional besides being a huge drain on the state exchequer. Distributing free CTV's among people was a scheme that was introduced by the earlier DMK government which bought around 16.4 million colour TV sets (14-inch) costing them around Rs 3,687 crore. The Jayalalithaa government has announced that it will start free distribution of mixers,grinders and fans and around 2.5 million families will benefit from the scheme during the year 2011-12. The state government also promised to give free laptops to students of 11th and 12th classes,which will benefit about 912,000 students in all government-aided or owned schools.
