New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Thursday cancelled the allotment of government bungalows that Congress Rajya Sabha members Ambika Soni and Kumari Selja continued to occupy after demitting office as ministers in the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
The court upheld the notice served on them the Directorate of Estates (DoE) on 5 May, asking them to vacate the Type-VIII bungalows in Lutyens Delhi by 10 June and move to smaller Type-VII bungalows from a general pool.
The two MP’s challenged the eviction notice in court. On 5 June, justice Mukta Gupta, a vacation judge, stayed the eviction order and sought a response from the central government, DoE and the Rajya Sabha secretariat by 2 July on their leaders’ plea.
Soni and Selja were residing in bungalows which had been allotted to them when they were ministers in the UPA government.
During the hearings, senior advocate, K.T.S. Tulsi, who appeared for both Soni and Shelja, said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government had “malafide intention against members of the opposition”.
He claimed that the two MPs were being victimised and discriminated against.
Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said he was “sad to note” that the two MPs, “merely for the sake of retaining a house to which they are not entitled, have attempted to give political overtones to the matter”.
“I may, however, hurry to add that in the present case, I am unable to find the action of the Directorate of Estates to be wrongful. It has, as aforesaid, stood established that the petitioners in their capacity, as former Union Ministers and now Members of Rajya Sabha (RS), are entitled to a Type-VII accommodation and not to Type-VIII accommodation,” he added. PTI contributed to this story.
