Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 31

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today virtually called in question the Centre’s policy of disinvestment by asserting that privatisation was not a panacea for all the ills, adding that the public sector undertakings were created by the Government of India to make a self-sufficient nation and to become “the master of our own destiny”.

Referring to Jawaharlal Nehru, the Bench of Justice Jitendra Chauhan and Justice Vivek Puri asserted the former Prime Minister christened Bhakra Nangal Dam as “the temple of modern India” while inaugurating it in October 1963.

The philosophy behind establishing it was to end India’s dependence on the rest of the world. “We are at a loss to understand that what can be more ‘Aatmnirbhar’ than an institution made in India, by the Indians, operationalised by the Indians, creating jobs for the Indians and enriching the Indian state with its profits,” the Bench asserted.

It was hearing a petition against the privatisation of electricity in UT, Chandigarh.

Directing that the proposed action of privatisation be kept in abeyance, the Bench added the idea of establishing such wings was an egalitarian one with the aim to include sections of society needing a helping hand. The philosophy of inclusion, envisaged by Dr BR Ambedkar in the Preamble, also included the concept of ‘Economic Justice’.

The Bench added: “To achieve this ideal of the Constitution as wished about by one of the greatest makers of this country, especially in such precarious times that we live in, it becomes imperative upon the administration to safeguard such institutions that protect the livelihood.”

What Bench said

Says privatisation is not a panacea for all the ills. Public sector undertakings were created by Govt of India to make a self-sufficient nation