Taj case returns to haunt Maya

Lucknow/New Delhi, Sept. 18: The ghost of the Taj Heritage Corridor case returned to haunt UP chief minister Mayawati once again on Friday with the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court issuing fresh notices to her and the senior UP minister, Mr Naseemuddin Siddiqui, in the case.

In New Delhi, the Supreme Court said on Friday it would have to examine if the state government could spend huge sums of public money to construct statues and memorials of political leaders. A bench comprising Justices B.N. Agarwal and Aftab Alam, hearing the case relating to the construction of the Kanshi Ram memorial in Lucknow, told UP government counsel Mukul Rohatgi that it was not satisfied with the affidavit filed by it, and also said it did not accept the “profuse apology” by the state government.

The bench said it had to examine if the state could spend so much money in constructing memorials and statues.

When Mr Rohatgi pointed out that the decision to spend Rs 2,600 crore on the memorial had been taken by the legislature and that the court could not interfere in that, the court reacted by saying that “the legislature and the executive act under the Constitution.” It asked what if the legislature decided to allocate 80 per cent of budgetary allocations for statutes and memorials.

“Is that not then justiciable?” the court asked. It posted the matter for October 5 and asked all parties concerned to file their affidavits by September 29.

In the Taj Corridor matter, a division bench of the Allahabad high court comprising Justices Pradeep Kant and Shabibul Hassnain admitted a PIL filed by Mr Anupama Singh, Mr Kamlesh Varma and Mr Qatil Ahmad against Ms Mayawati and Mr Siddiqui, who had earlier been exonerated by the CBI court in the case.