HT
Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Chandigarh,
May 23, 2012
Showing
little conviction in the Punjab advocate-general's (AG) repeated
arguments objecting to a judicial panel to probe grabbing of public
land by high-ups in Chandigarh's periphery, the Punjab and Haryana
high court directed him to assist the court as a 'friend of the
court' and sit with the amicus curiae (lawyer acting as 'friend of
the court'), Arun Jain, to finalise the terms of reference for the
panel by Thursday.
Retired
Supreme Court judge Kuldeep Singh has already given his consent to
head the two-member commission or tribunal. However, the bench said
that it was also considering if advocate PN Aggarwal, who had
expertise in revenue matters, could assist the panel.
When
the case came up for arguments before the division bench comprising
acting chief justice MM Kumar and justice Alok Singh on Wednesday, AG
Ashok Aggarwal reiterated that there was no need to constitute a
commission as nobody had questioned the state government's detailed
affidavit in which clean chit was handed to all but seven prominent
persons alleged to have encroached upon government land in SAS Nagar
district.
However,
the bench asked him, "How was the public land made private? What
was the nature of land before Independence, and how was it changed
later? Your affidavit tries to justify that 60 (influential) people
have private land."
The
bench further added, "When people like Saini (DGP Sumedh Singh
Saini) and Badal (chief minister Parkash Singh) are involved, how can
we expect that such people will decide against themselves?"
When
Aggarwal again argued that there was nothing wrong in the affidavit,
the bench asked, "Mr Aggarwal, you know better what is going
on." It stated that as the affidavit carried "entries which
are nowhere on the record".
"You
should have mentioned in the report what as the original nature of
land…Let the commission come. It will tell the whole world (what
the reality is), and you yourself will be surprised," the bench
told Aggarwal.
During
the arguments, senior advocate ML Sareen made a submission that he
had also been appointed amicus curiae in a similar case by the high
court where a huge number of encroachment cases in Punjab had been
highlighted. He said that the bench had directed the state to submit
the records of all the cases and make efforts to evict illegal
encroachers as per the Supreme Court's directions.
Copyright
© 2012 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment