By IANS,
New Delhi : The Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) told the Supreme Court Monday that auction was the only “rational and legal” way for allocating the nation’s natural resources to private parties for commercial exploitation.
CPIL said this in its response to the presidential reference seeking opinion of the court whether the allocation of natural resources for commercial exploitation across all the sectors and in all the circumstances could only be done through auction.
“…the rule of law mandate would obviously mean that if and when scarce and limited natural resources are allocated to private parties for commercial exploitation then the only rational and legal method (which minimises abuse and maximises public interest) is a properly designed transparent public auction…”, the CPIL said.
“This would be consistent with…the constitution of India”, it said.
An apex court constitution bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice D.K. Jain, Justice J.S. Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Ranjan Gogoi had May 11, issued notices on reference to all states, the CPIL, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry.
Presidential reference seeking clarity on the methodology of allocating natural resources was made April 12.