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HC scraps eight more of Captain Sharma's 'discretionary' allotments

The Delhi high court on Friday scrapped eight more allotments of petrol pumps, kerosene outlets and liquified petroleum gas dealerships made by former petroleum minister Satish Sharma from his discretionary quota, taking the total of such cancellations to 103.

A division bench comprising Justices Y K Sabharwal and D K Jain ruled that the dealerships were being cancelled as they were allotted without proper verification of claims by the ministry.

Friday's cancellations were of three petrol pumps, four standard kerosene outlets and one LPG dealership. The owners were Murugan, T Shiv Kumar, Alep Prakash, T Pushpa, Narsingh Bahadur, Yoginder Mishra, Raj Narayan and Mohan Ramkrishan Joshi.

The cancellations had started on August 29, when the bench scrapped 69 petrol pumps, kerosene outlets and LPG dealerships affecting altogether 77 people. Some of them were relatives of senior politicians and bureaucrats, friends of the minister and people from Amethi (Captain Sharma's constituency).

The bench was hearing a public interest petition filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation challenging the 1992-1996 allotments on the grounds that the minister had misused his power and accepted 'favours' in return.

UNI

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