The government was put on the defensive yesterday over its move to reverse the Supreme Courts order scrapping the allotment of petrol pumps and gas agencies under ministers discretionary quotas through the 1990s. Parliamentary affairs minister Srikanta Jena finally had to promise not to do it unless there was a political consensus.
A cabinet minister later said that the government was likely to make up its mind after talking to various political parties before this Friday. He was not willing to talk about the significance of the decision being taken before the House adjourns for recess.
He was forced to make the statement after Pramod Mahajan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said more than once that the governments silence must be construed as an admission that it was going to do it.
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The matter was discussed at two cabinet meetings last week, but was held up because of strong objections expressed by agriculture minister Chaturanan Mishra, among others. The matter was raised by Mahajan during zero hour. He was strongly backed by Basudev Acharya of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who said that the government must make a statement. Rajesh Pilot of the Congress added that the House did not want the allotments to be regularised. CPI (M) floor leader Somnath Chatterjee said that the House was unanimous on this point, and rightly so, but the government must be sensitive to the problems of the 20,000 government employees who had been evicted by the Supreme Courts order because they had been given out-of-turn allotments. They were being peremptorily evicted after staying for years. Samata Party chief George Fernandes strongly protested linking the two issues and said that the Supreme Courts order must stand.
Chatterjee clarified that he had not mixed the issues, he only wanted the government employees problems to be treated as a human problem.
That the government indeed wanted to link the two issues was amply clear when a Union minister, who did not wish to be identified, said that whereas in the petrol pump allotment case the court has given the cut-off year as 1992, it has taken 1992 as the cut-off year in the case of petrol pump allotment case.
The minister argued that it would be extremely difficult to establish which allotment was right and which one was not as the Supreme Court has not questioned the discretionary quota, but has asked the government to chalk out criteria for allotment under the criteria.
Besides, why should those who got out-of-turn allotment before the cut off time be let off and only those after the cut-off time be penalised. Why not scrutinise the entire discretionary allotment since 1947, he asked.
Congress chief whip Santosh Mohan Deb said that his party, too, wanted the 20,000 government employees to be treated with sympathy. As for the pumps, Pilot had enunciated the partys latest stand, he quipped amid laughter.
He seemed to be obliquely suggesting that Pilot had not stated the partys formulated policy when demanding that the petrol pumps, most of them allotted by Congress ministers, should not be reinstated to the allottees.
The Left parties came down heavily on the move and said that this was against the spirit of the United Fronts common minimum programme. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Left leaders said that it was not proper to initiate any action on the matter which will be legitimising the arbitrary misuse of official powers.