Unpaid bills by former MPs: HC reserves order on PIL

The Delhi High Court today reserved its order on a PIL alleging that some former MPs vacated their official residences after their tenures ended without paying electricity, water and telephone dues.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said that it will pass an order after the counsel for the petitioner and the respondents concluded their arguments, in which the Lok Sabha Secretariat told the court that they cannot recover the outstanding telephone and electricity bills from former MPs.
Senior advocate Maninder Acharya, appearing for Lok Sabha Secretariat, contended that there are over 300 sitting MPs/ex- MPs/ex-ministers.

Acharya said that they are only deducting Rs 10,000 from the account of the sitting MPs but the same cannot be done with ex-MPs.
The bench was hearing a PIL by NGO Krishak Bharat, which had moved court in 1998 seeking directions to the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) to recover their dues running into crores from hundreds of sitting and former MPs, which they owe to the four public utilities for enjoying their services.
The petitioner alleged that they had availed services in ITDC hotels and failed to clear the bills.

Earlier, the high court had sought to know from ITDC, NDMC and MTNL how they plan to recover the money from the political parties after the defaulting MPs did not respond to the notices issued by the public bodies for payment of pending dues.

Appearing for the public bodies, a counsel had submitted the agencies will have no difficulty in recovering money from sitting MPs but it is a problem in case of those who are no longer in Parliament and have dues running into lakhs of rupees each.
ITDC had said that dues of over Rs 8 lakh were pending against 244 former MPs. He had said that ITDC has initiated execution proceedings against 37 of them.

NDMC's lawyer informed the court that unpaid bills of MPs added up to Rs 5 crore while MTNL recounted a figure of Rs 6 crore.