The Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium as amicus to assist the court in a petition that challenged the amendments in the state laws allowing former chief ministers (CM) of Uttar Pradesh to continue occupying government bungalows.A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi also appointed Advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan to assist the senior advocate in the PIL filed...
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium as amicus to assist the court in a petition that challenged the amendments in the state laws allowing former chief ministers (CM) of Uttar Pradesh to continue occupying government bungalows.
A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi also appointed Advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan to assist the senior advocate in the PIL filed by NGO Lok Prahari alleging the amendments were brought to defeat the Supreme Court's order.
The bench fixed October 10 for final hearing of the matter.
The plea was against amendments made by the Akhilesh Yadav government to the UP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act to allow the former CMs to occupy government bungalows.
It has also challenged the validity of another Act the Allotment of Houses under Control of the Estate Department Act.
According to the petition, the amendments in the law enable several former UP chief ministers to retain government bungalows.
It was alleged that to circumvent the Supreme Court's previous order the amendments were brought by the then state government.
In its verdict in August 2016, the apex court had held that allotment of government bungalows to former CMs was bad in law and they should hand over possession of the bungalows occupied by them.