By IANS
New Delhi : The central government came in for a rebuke from the Supreme Court Tuesday over its lackadaisical approach on the issue of evicting senior government officials and politicians overstaying in official accommodations.
A bench of Justices B.N. Agrawal and D.K. Jain expressed open ire when the government’s counsel, including Additional Solicitor General Amrendra Saran, betrayed signs of confusion and ignorance over the court’s last order on July 24 on the issue.
The bench had slated Sep 18 to examine the criminal culpability of government officials and politicians who were overstaying, while it had fixed Sep 19 to examine the matter of recovering penal rents from them.
In its July 24 order as well as later, the bench had repeatedly asked the government to prosecute the erring officials and politicians for the offence of trespassing under section 441 of the Indian Penal code.
The bench had also sought the government’s stand on amending the IPC to make the offence of trespassing a non-bailable and cognisable one.
The bench got angry when Saran said that he was told by his subordinates that the matter would come up for hearing on Sep 19.
“That implies that you don’t even read the court’s order. That shows your seriousness over the issue,” the bench fumed.
The court bluntly told the law officer that even if the matter was listed for Sep 19, the government was yet to file its affidavit.
“When will you file the affidavit and when will we read it,” the bench asked.
As the bench demanded the list of people overstaying in government bungalows, the law officer was again not able to respond to the demand immediately, which infuriated the bench even more.
“How many politicians have you got evicted in Delhi. You only evict peons and clerks, but don’t have the guts to touch politicians or senior government officials,” said the bench.
“And whatever you do, you do it only on the strength of court orders. You don’t do anything on your own,” the bench lamented.