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Major setback for Deve Gowda
Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda suffered a major blow on Friday when the Delhi high court cancelled the petrol pump allotted to his daughter-in-law by former petroleum minister Satish Sharma. Almost all allotments made by Captain Sharma have been cancelled.
Delivering the 82-page judgment in a jam-packed courtroom, a division bench comprising Y K Sabharwal and D K Jain said, ''It is not disputed that when the allotment was made in her (Deve Gowda's daughter-in-law T S Anitha) favour, he was the chief minister of Karnataka.... To our mind, it is a clear case of favouritism on account of extraneous considerations.''
The bench observed, ''An allotment of this nature smacks of
outright malafide.''
In all, the court cancelled 78 controversial petrol pump allotments including the one made to Law Secretary V K Agarwal's wife under the discretionary quota.
However, the court adjourned the case pertaining to 21 such allotments made by Captain Sharma's predecessor B Shankaranand to December 18.
The order came on a public interest petition filed by the Centre
for Public Interest Litigation, a non-governmental society in
which many senior advocates are said to be founder members.
The bench said the central government and the oil corporations
concerned should take over the petrol pumps on December 1, 1997.
The right of ownership shall be disposed of by public
auction before December 1. Even the original allottee can participate in the auction.
''Out of the auction money, the cost of the land and
construction, as determined by the oil corporation, shall be paid to
the original allottee and the remaining amount shall be remitted to
the prime minister's relief fund,'' the court said.
The court divided the cases into three periods -- those allotted by Shankaranand, those sanctioned by Captain Sharma between April 1993 and March 31, 1995, and those made from April 1 1995 till now. In all, during this period, nearly 250 allotments were made under the discretionary quota.
During the second period, all but four allotments have been
cancelled and during the third period decision on eight is pending.
Four have been cancelled.
The high court was examining the validity of these allotments
following a Supreme Court order in September last year. The
apex court, which cancelled 15 of these allotments, had imposed
exemplary damages of Rs 5 million on Captain Sharma for misusing the discretionary quota.
UNI
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