Show us some of the dirt too: SC tells Govt

The Centre however claimed that it did not engage in any ‘‘pick and choose’’ when it came up with the representative cases which were transferred by the Supreme Court to itself from various high courts at the last hearing on August 28.

Solicitor General Kirit Raval in fact put on record a copy of today’s Express report and said the Government had no objection to any class of cases being examined to determine the validity of its decision to cancel over 3,000 allotments made since January 1, 2000.

‘‘This is a case where the press has rendered a great service by exposing a certain malaise in the system,’’ Raval said. ‘‘In all humility, I must submit that the Government also deserves to be commended for responding in a manner aimed at restoring public confidence in the process of governance and emphasising probity in public life.’’

In its order, the bench said the solicitor general will within a week ‘‘mention as representative cases some of the allotments which were questioned and highlighted by the media.’’

After those political cases are brought on board, the court will start hearing the matter on a regular basis from December 11.

It has already begun to question the rationale behind the Government’s decision to cancel all allotments without checking their credentials. When the bench asked Raval whether the Government had made any examination of the files, the solicitor general said a policy decision of this nature would not have been taken without some examination but added that he had no knowledge of the kind of examination done by the Government. However, he added the Government was ready to face any kind of inquiry and judicial examination to prove its bonafide in taking the decision.

‘‘What the Government has done is cancelled all. There would have been some cases which would have been allotted fairly. Has the Government taken the trouble of examining which are the cases where favouritism was done?’’ the bench asked.

Justice Sabharwal also recalled his earlier experience in Delhi High Court of examining the validity of allotments of petrol pumps and dealerships of petroleum products by former petroleum minister Satish Sharma.

‘‘Those were stereotype allotments without any application of mind. The allotments were even made because some were from a particular constituency. But even among those allotments we found some to be done fairly and we segregated them from those which were allotted without any basis,’’ he said.

In an omnibus interim order on August 28, the Supreme Court had stayed the government’s August 9 decision to cancel all allotments in the wake of the series of investigative reports by The Indian Express.