Delhi high court summons file on petrol pump allotment to Deve Gowda's kin

The Delhi high court on Friday directed the Union petroleum ministry to produce in court on May 15 the original file on the allotment of a petrol pump to former prime minister Deve Gowda's daughter-in-law by then petroleum minister Satish Sharma in 1984.

A division bench consisting of Justices V K Sabharwal and D K Jain was told that the file of Anitha, wife of Deve Gowda's son and Lok Sabha member H Kumaraswamy, was lying in the prime minister's office. The file being perused by the bench was a reconstructed version, it was said.

The judges said that the file before them seemed incomplete as neither Anitha's bio-data nor any other relevant details about her were mentioned in it. It then directed that the file, which was lying with the PMO, be produced before it.

In her reply to the show-cause notice issued to her on February 27, Anitha said that she was allotted the petrol pump in Bangalore as she was an unemployed computer engineer. Her application had been recommended by then Lok Sabha member Deve Gowda and sent to the petroleum ministry.

Submitting that Anitha had taken a loan of Rs 35 lakh from a bank to get the petrol pump operational, her counsel Suhail Khan pleaded against the cancellation of the allotment.

He contended that no special importance should be attached to the recommendation letter of Deve Gowda, as he would have recommended the case of any such eligible candidate.

However, the bench expressed surprise at the counsel's submission that Anitha could not find a job even though she held a bachelor's degree in computer engineering.

The same court observed on Thursday that Satish Sharma appeared to have made allotments of petrol pumps and kerosene and LPG (cooking gas) dealerships ''in blatant'' violation of the Supreme Court guidelines of March 1995.

The observation was made while hearing the reply of Acharya Ganpat Rai, a family priest of the Nehru family, to the show-cause notice sent to him alongwith 80 other people on February 27, 1997.

Rai was granted a petrol retail outlet in 1995 by Satish Sharma from his discretionary quota.

The bench observed that the minister's order was made in a ''routine manner'' and ''without any regard for the Supreme Court guidelines'' which had said that all relevant information should be supplied to the ministry and should be verified by the officers before the minister grants a petroleum product dealership on compassionate grounds.

Observing that neither was the data put up to the minister nor the procedure laid down by the apex court followed, the bench wondered if this was the respect which the Central government had for the highest court in the land.

The bench heard replies of 20 people who were issued notices on February 27 to show-cause why their retailerships be not cancelled.

The bench also directed Central government standing counsel A K Vali to inform the court whether and when Union law secretary V K Aggarwal had intimated the government about the allotment of an LPG dealership to his wife. The court made this query after Vali submitted that though it was not necessary for government officials to take prior sanction for their spouses to start a business, they were required to intimate the government about it.

Usha Aggarwal was allotted an LPG dealership in Mathura by Sharma during 1994-95 while her husband was serving as additional secretary in the Union law ministry.

The bench also posted for hearing on May 15 the replies of 32 people who were issued notices on March 20. The court told these allottees to file their replies to the notices by May 12.

The high court is examining the validity of the 400-odd retailerships allotted by Sharma from his discretionary quota following a Supreme Court order of September last year. The apex court had cancelled 15 such allotments and imposed ''exemplary damages'' of Rs 50 lakh on Sharma for ''criminal breach of public trust''.

The bench will also examine the allotments made by the oil selection boards during 1992-96.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appearing for Khagendra Kumar, son of former Rajya Sabha member Ram Awadhesh Singh, submitted before the bench that only those allotments should be cancelled where there was prima-facie evidence of corruption.

Allotments, which were guided by compassion and humanitarian considerations should not be upset, Jethmalani averred.

Khagendra Kumar was allotted a petrol pump in 1994-95 as he was an unemployed post-graduate and his father did not even draw his MP's pension, counsel added.

However, the bench questioned the senior counsel as to what it should do ''when the compassion is confined to more than a dozen people in a particular constituency''.

Several of the allottees whose replies came up for hearing on Thursday belonged to Sharma's parliamentary constituency of Amethi. Several of them were allotted the retailerships after the Supreme Court guidelines of March 31, 1995.

In most cases, the sanctioning was done in a routine manner without either following the laid-down procedure or carrying out any verification of the applicants' claims of penury, hardship, physical disability or other attendant circumstances, public interest litigation's counsel Prashant Bhushan submitted to the court.

UNI