Apex court seeks replies of Amar Singh, others on land scam

The Supreme Court Monday sought the response of Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh and several politicians and officials of Uttar Pradesh on a lawsuit by the state government seeking approval for their prosecution for irregular allotment of huge residential plots to them in Lucknow in 2005.

Issuing the notices, a bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal asked for their replies within six weeks.

The others who were allotted plots by the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government and were sent notices Monday include Yadav's brother and former state minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, the chief minister's then special secretary Anita Singh, and his principal secretary Anil Kumar, Lucknow's former senior superintendent of police Navneet Sikera, the then Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) chairman's wife Kailashi Devi, former special secretary Ram Vraksh Yadav, Jaupur District Magistrate Anurag Yadav's wife Preeti Choudhary and several others.

On the Mayawati government's plea, the apex court in February transferred from the Allahabad High Court to itself over two dozen lawsuits by people close to Mulayam Singh Yadav, defending the allotments of the residential plots to themselves.

The state government had sought that the apex court take over these lawsuits because it was already heading a public interest lawsuit filed by Congress leader Vishvanath Chaturvedi.

Chaturvedi in his lawsuit demanded cancellation of the illegal allotment of the plots to the politicians and the bureaucrats, and the apex court restrained the Lucknow Development Authority from transferring the plots to them.

Following a hue and cry in the media, former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2005 ordered a judicial probe, but the commission headed by a former high court judge never completed the probe despite getting three extensions of six months each.

After the change of the government in the state, new Chief Minister Mayawati handed over the probe to Lucknow division's Commissioner Vijay Shankar Pandey.

Pandey completed his probe on Sep 25, 2007, and concluded that the state exchequer was defrauded of nearly Rs.29 million owing to illegal allotment of plots. He recommended prosecution of the several government officials responsible for it.

He also recommended prosecution of the politicians and bureaucrats who were allotted the plots.

Last updated on Jul 13^th, 2009 at 19:18 pm IST--IANS