SC to examine Salt Lake land cases

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Kolkata: The CPM government in West Bengal may have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions as the Supreme Court examines the validity of land allotment in Kolkata's Salt Lake City.

Since the early '60s, land was allotted to citizens including retired judges, IAS and IPS officers under a special quota of the Bengal chief minister. Scrutiny of these allotments may now open a can of worms.

In November 2004, the apex court had ruled that the Bengal government should not have given the plot of land on which this building stands.

A property in the name of retired Calcutta High Court judge Bhagawati Prasad Banerjee in the Salt Lake City is being sold off early next month under a Supreme Court order. But Banerjee wasn't the only individual who had received land in Salt Lake under the chief minister's special quota. Though the others were spared earlier, the apex court has now decided to examine the allotment of land to 265 others.

Explains Banerjee: "In the earlier writ petition all these points, which perhaps have been raised in this writ petition, were raised. But the Supreme Court decided not to go into this question. They took up only one allotment of mine and they have cancelled my allotment on some ground that is appearing in the judgment. Now the Supreme Court has taken up the issue, which was left to be decided in the earlier writ petition."

Apart from the Bengal government and state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, respondents in this case include former chief minister Jyoti Basu and his son Chandan. The Supreme Court is sending out notices asking them and the 265 recipients of land, named in the petition, to explain the controversial allotments. And it wouldn't be easy for the CPIM government of Bengal to rebut the charge of nepotism.

The Supreme Court notices might now open a can of worms and give the opposition parties in Bengal a solid campaign material ahead in the forthcoming elections.

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