The Supreme Court (SC,) on the 8th of February, ordered Mayawati Das, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader, to reimburse the public money used to construct a statue of an elephant.
The order came after Ravi Kant, an advocate, in 2009, filed a petition against building and installing statues and the use of public money for the same.
Mr. Kant alleged the BSP of spending approximately Rs.1,200 crores on statues and said, it is unjustified as there are 50 million people living below poverty line in Uttar Pradesh. He also claimed, the action of the BSP Government violated the Model Code of Conduct.
The three judge bench, led by Ranjan Gogoi, the Chief Justice of India (CJI,) and comprising of Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, reviewed the petition. The SC bench said, “We are of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit the public money spent on her statues and party symbol to the state exchequer.” They further said, “We primarily think Ms Mayawati should return this money she has spent from the public exchequer on statues, elephants.”
The SC also said, the final hearing about the matter will be held on the 2nd of April 2019. The Court further said, “Please come prepared on the next date of hearing. We are posting this on April 2. And you now know our tentative view (sic.)”
Mayawati Das, during her tenure as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2007 to 2014, granted a total of Rs. 2,600 crores for building a Dalit memorial, the statues of leaders and the recently constructed elephant statue. The statues were built in several parks in Lucknow and Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
Stay tuned for further updates.
