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Paswan's discretion was 'unjustified' indiscretion, rules Delhi high court

Taking strong exception to the 'unjustified' manner in which former railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan and former minister of state for railways Satpal Maharaj distributed free 'cheque' passes from their discretionary quota, the Delhi high court has directed the authorities to fix a maximum limit on the issuance of such passes within three months.

A division bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Arun Kumar ruled that the two ministers, in a period of less than one year (June 3, 1996 to June 1, 1997), distributed 7,362 cheque passes. One cheque pass allows four people to travel both ways of a journey.

The order came on a public interest petition filed by Rekha Bhasin.

On analysing the documents placed on record with the railway ministry's affidavit, the court said, it was revealed that in most cases even the address, occupation and the reason for which the passes were issued had not been mentioned.

''A large number of recipients of these passes belong to a particular constituency of Bihar,'' the judgement said, ''...we can safely conclude that no norms were followed while issuing these passes. It has to be realised by the holders of the public office that what was distributed in the form of largesse is not the part of personal empire or asset of any individual, but all that belonged to the people of this country.''

The court directed the railways to fix a ceiling for the number of passes which ministers can issue in a year within three months. ''Our object in fixing the limit is that the discretionary quota of the ministers may not be misused or abused in future in the same manner,'' it said.

UNI

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