The Punjab and Haryana high court has come down heavily on the Chandigarh administration for showing “undue hurry” in pushing for power privatisation amid a raging pandemic.
“... we are unable to reconcile with the fact that when the whole world is grappling with the deadly virus, when there is no oxygen, no ICUs, a long queue at the cremation grounds and no place in the hospitals, the undue hurry on the part of the administration to hand over the profit-making department to a private entity at this stage of the history and in this situation of crisis faced by the entire mankind, seems to be misplaced,” the bench of justice Jitendra Chauhan and justice Vivek Puri recorded.
Justice Chauhan retired on Friday, the day the bench stayed the UT’s move to privatise the power department. The order, which came on a plea of the UT Powermen Union, was released on Monday. Earlier, on December 1 too, the HC had applied brakes on the process. However, the UT approached the Supreme Court, which had stayed the HC order but also remanded back the case to it.
‘A profit-making entity’
The bench said that it is not clear as to what was the intended purpose of setting up the engineering wing — the power distributor in the city — and whether it has failed to achieve the same. The court also wondered that when the department is a profit-making entity, how it is covered under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self -Reliant India Mission).
“If the argument on behalf of the respondents is to make India ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, we are at a loss to understand that what can be more ‘Atmanirbhar’ than an institution made in India, by Indians, operationalised by Indians, creating jobs for Indians and enriching the Indian State with its profits,” it remarked.
{{/usCountry}}“If the argument on behalf of the respondents is to make India ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, we are at a loss to understand that what can be more ‘Atmanirbhar’ than an institution made in India, by Indians, operationalised by Indians, creating jobs for Indians and enriching the Indian State with its profits,” it remarked.
{{/usCountry}}‘Protect such institutions’
The bench further said that such institutions (departments) should be protected, as they provide a security net for the society to fall back upon, for the poorest of the poor to dream of a better future and for the person at the end of the line to be aspirational, so that he too can be part of the Indian dream. “The proposed action of privatisation is in direct conflict with the nation’s agenda ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’,” the bench asserted.
The bench said that at a time when the functioning of the courts is curtailed and the petition could not be decided, the cause of “justice and humanity” will be better served by putting the process in abeyance.
“We feel that privatisation is not a panacea for all the ills and privatisation with blind motive of so-called efficiency falls flat as this department is not only a profitable one but also time and again matched the high standards of customer satisfaction and has a big role in maintaining the City Beautiful,” it recorded.