IANS reported that Indian Supreme Court Justice JS Khehar Thursday noted the allotment of natural resources has become a political issue and even hit work in two sessions of parliament, but stressed the court should not become part of this political debate.

He said in his separate but concurring judgment of a 5 judge bench on a presidential reference in the wake of the 2G spectrum verdict “One is compelled to take judicial notice of the fact that allotment of natural resources is an issue of extensive debate in the country, so much so, that the issue of allocation of such resources had recently resulted in a washout of two sessions of Parliament.”

Noting that the current debate on allotment of material resources has been prompted by a report submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General, asserting extensive loss in revenue based on inappropriate allocations, Justice Khehar said the report says that private and public sector companies had made windfall gains because the process of competitive bidding was not adopted.

He said "If one were to accept the allegations appearing in the media, on account of defects in the disposal mechanism, private parties have been beneficiaries to the tune of lakhs of crores of Indian Rupees, just for that reason. In the current debate, rival political parties have made allegations against those responsible, which have been repudiated with counter allegations. This Court is not, and should never be seen to be, a part of that debate. But it does seem that the Presidential reference is aimed at invoking this Court's advisory jurisdiction to iron out the creases, so that legal and constitutional parameters are correctly understood.”

Agreeing with the main opinion, Justice Khehar said "The mandate contained in the Article extracted above envisages that all material resources ought to be distributed in a manner which would 'best subserve the common good.”

Source - IANS

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