New Delhi, September 18
Terming as “unsatisfactory” the Uttar Pradesh government’s response to the show-cause notice, the Supreme Court today made it clear that it would not “drop” the issue of construction of memorials in Lucknow spending “so much of” public money.
The state government’s apology-cum-unintended transgression reply to the notice “is not satisfactory” and “it is not such a matter that can be dropped” by the court, a Bench comprising Justices BN Agarwal and Aftab Alam observed. The court would have to go into the issue whether “you can incur so much of expenditure on memorials,” the Bench said, clarifying that it was “immaterial” whether it was Budget allocation approved by the state Assembly and the Cabinet.
The Bench made the remark in response to an argument by senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi, who appeared for the state, that the legislature and the Cabinet had duly approved all the expenditure.
“Suppose 80 per cent of the funds is diverted for this, is it justifiable,” the Bench questioned the state.
Pointing out that the petition questioning the wisdom in incurring huge expenses on the memorials and statues had raised “very serious issues,”
the Bench asserted that it would treat “on the same footing” utilisation of funds with approval or without approval. The issue was the large percentage of money going for such constructions.
Posting the next hearing for October 5, the Bench directed the applicant and the media to file their response to the state’s affidavit filed by Chief Secretary Atul Kumar Gupta by September 29. The state has been asked to file its counter-affidavit by October 3.
A related petition, which had earlier been slated for September 29, would also be heard on October 5, along with the application that had come up today.
The SC had issued the show-cause notice on September 11 after taking suo motu note of media reports that said the state government was going ahead with the construction of the memorials flouting its own undertaking given to the court on September 8 for stopping work.
