Mayawati seeks to gag details of fund transfer

New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's office on Sunday approached the Supreme Court to oppose the State Information Commission's order to reveal details about Mulayam Singh Yadav's distribution of the Chief Minister's discretionary funds during his tenure.

A bench of Justices K.G. Balakrishnan and P. Sathasivam issued notices to the commission and Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh, but refused to suspend the commission's order.

"What's wrong in revealing the information," the bench remarked as the Uttar Pradesh government's counsel pleaded for a direction that the commission's order be suspended.

In December 2007, the Uttar Pradesh Information Commission had asked Mayawati's office to reveal details of all monetary donations above Rs100,000 made by her arch-rival Mulayam Singh from the fund during his tenure as Chief Minister between August 2003 and March 2007.

Battle

The order, on a plea by Akhilesh Pratap Singh under the Right to Information Act, has left the Mayawati government waging a relentless legal battle to shield information on the dubious largesse of her arch political rival.

Akhilesh Pratap Singh had first approached the chief minister's office on June 12, 2007, within a month of Mayawati being sworn in as Chief Minister.

Mayawati's office denied him the information on grounds that revealing it would hurt the privacy of the people who had taken the financial help.

Akhilesh Pratap Singh then approached the State Information Commission, which ruled in his favour.