Chief Justice to assign PIL against Mayawati's bungalow: Allahabad HC

A division bench of justices Satyendra Singh Chauhan and Ritu Raj Awasthi issued the order yesterday while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by M L Yadav in 2013

The Allahabad High Court has directed that a plea against merger and allotment of bungalows to former Chief Minister Mayawati be placed before Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud so that it can be assigned to an appropriate bench.

"The question of merger, as pointed out by the learned Additional Advocate General (AAG), is not directly an issue before the larger bench, but in order to remove all doubts, we hereby direct that this matter be placed before the Chief Justice for nomination of appropriate bench," the court ordered.

A division bench of justices Satyendra Singh Chauhan and Ritu Raj Awasthi issued the order on Tuesday while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by M L Yadav in 2013 seeking Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into this matter.

On behalf of the state government, AAG Bulbul Godiyal pointed out that identical matters were engaging the attention of a larger bench which had been constituted under the orders of the Supreme Court.

Earlier, the court had given one last opportunity to the state government counsel on his request to file supplementary affidavit on information regarding merger of any other government bungalows in Lucknow.

It had also directed the petitioner to do more research and find out as to how many other bungalows had been merged in Lucknow as was done in bungalow allotment to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati.

The petitioner sought a direction that all the records of bungalows in Mall Avenue be produced and it be made clear under which procedure/channel the houses were allegedly merged and alloted to Mayawati.

He also sought a direction for a detailed inquiry by an independent agency like CBI in the matter.