Ex-UP CMs to vacate official bungalows as SC annuls law

| | New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Monday quashed a law that allowed former Chief Ministers in Uttar Pradesh to occupy an official bungalow throughout their lifetime. The previous Akhilesh Yadav Government in 2016 had amended the law to make ex-CMs Rajnath Singh, Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and ND Tiwari entitled for lifetime Government bungalows.

The court had in 2016 scrapped this practice of giving former CMs a bungalow to keep for life, the Akhilesh Yadav Government introduced amendments to the UP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1981’ to overcome the bar. Finally, the matter returned to court with a NGO, Lok Prahari, challenging Section 4A of the 1981 Act in a public interest litigation that came to be decided on Monday.

Issuing the fiat to remove former CMs from their current Government accommodations, the SC said, “The CM, once he/she demits the office, is at par with the common citizen, though by virtue of the office held, he/she may be entitled to security and other protocols. But allotment of Government bungalow, to be occupied during his/her lifetime, would not be guided by the constitutional principle of equality.”

“The public office held by them (CMs) becomes a matter of history and, therefore, cannot form the basis of a reasonable classification to categorise previous holders of public office as a special category of persons entitled to the benefit of special privileges,” the SC said.

The UP Government argued that the amendment does not infringe upon any citizen’s fundamental rights and sought to link it to privileges enjoyed by the lawmakers. But the SC rejected this submission.

The court had appointed senior advocate Gopal Subramanium as amicus curiae. Subramanium in his submissions submitted that the same logic applied to former PMs as well who too should be deprived from holding on to a Government bungalow for lifetime. The court refused to heed to this suggestion and restricted its focus on the UP law alone.