The Allahabad High Court (HC) has ordered the Congress to clear the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation’s (UPSRTC) long-pending dues of Rs 2.68 crore for use of its buses and taxis for political purposes from 1981-1989, when the party was in power in UP. Congress’s UP spokesperson Anshu Awasthi said that they would seek legal opinion on the court order from the party’s legal panel and will act accordingly.
The HC was hearing a 25-year-old litigation about the monetary dispute between the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) and UPSRTC.
Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Manish Kumar, while passing the judgment, observed that UPCC exercised its dominant position and utilised public property to fulfill its political purposes, however, did not clear the dues when the bills were raised by the UPSRTC. Also, the bench rejected the UPCC’s argument that the amount was wrongly being recovered by the successive government just to settle political vendetta.
“There is no doubt that the question of recovery of public money is involved in the present case which is used for political purposes by the petitioner, therefore, the petitioner is bound to pay the said amount,” reads the 17-page court order, directing the UPCC to clear the pending dues of Rs 2,68,29,879.78 along with 5% interest to UPSRTC from the date it is due, within a period of three months.
THE CONGRESS REGIME
Senior officials with the UPSRTC said that the bill was incurred during the period of 1981 to 1989 during the Congress regime in UP.
After the President’s rule in 1980, the Congress government came to power in UP on June 9, 1980, and Vishwanath Pratap Singh became UP’s Chief Minister (2 years and 40 days). He was followed by Sripati Mishra (2 years and 15 days), Narayan Dutt Tiwari (August 3, 1984) and Vir Bahadur Singh (2 years and 275 days). Singh was followed by Narayan Dutt Tiwari, who became the UP CM for the second time on June 25, 1988 and remained in power for 1 year and 163 days. The Congress’s regime was ended by Janata Dal.
After pursuing for long, the UPSRTC issued a notice to the national political party on November 10, 1998. In response, the Congress filed the petition before the Allahabad High Court, challenging the recovery notice issued by the Tehsildar, Sadar, Lucknow.
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