Vacate government houses ‘gracefully’: Uttarakhand HC to ex-CMs

Nainital: Taking a strict stand over the continued occupation of government-allotted bungalows by former chief ministers of the state, the Uttarakhand high court on Friday asked them to vacate the houses “gracefully”, and asked them to inform the court of how much time they would need to do so.
“You should gracefully vacate or we will have to pass orders,” said a division bench of chief justice KM Joseph and justice VK Bisht, to which counsels for former CMs Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Vijay Bahuguna, BC Khanduri and Bhagat Singh Koshyari assured the court that they would comply.
HC then posted the matter for Monday and asked the ex-CMs’ counsels to inform the court how much time they would need to vacate the houses.
“We vehemently argued before the court that simply vacating the house will not suffice as the occupancy was itself illegal from the start, as the law based on which the residences were allotted applies only in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Government must charge market rent from these illegal occupants,” said Kartikey Hari Gupta, counsel for the petitioner.
On August 1, the Supreme Court ordered the former CMs of Uttar Pradesh to vacate their bungalows within two months. The apex court had declared UP ex-Chief Minister Allotment of Residences Rules, 1997, illegal and unconstitutional and asked the UP government to charge rent for the government bungalows for the whole period of illegal stay from the ex-CMs of UP.
The petition filed at the Uttarakhand high court by a Dehradun-based NGO, Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, led by Avdhesh Kaushal, a Padma Shri awardee, had pleaded that a lot of taxpayers’ money was being spent on providing official accommodations to the ex-chief ministers of Uttarakhand, all of who have their own houses where they can stay. In April this year, the state in its affidavit said that all facilities except residence of ex-CMs have been withdrawn.
The petitioner, Kaushal, had said that the UP ex-Chief Minister Allotment of Residences Rules, 1997, is not applicable for the former CMs of Uttarakhand. In his PIL, Kaushal had mentioned a list of houses owned by the former CMs to highlight the fact that despite having “huge houses” mentioned in the affidavits they had filed, the ex-CMs had allotted themselves “furnished palatial bungalows” along with staff and official vehicles on the basis of a personal memo issued by them without approval from the state assembly.