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Supreme Court asks Centre to amend law

J. Venkatesan

Legal hurdles in revamping Super Bazar The livelihood of over 1,000 employees is at stake

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to consider amending the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS) Act to enable private parties to pump in the required money to revamp the Super Bazar at Connaught Place in the Capital.

During the last hearing in November, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) expressed its willingness to let out the entire Super Bazar building to private parties to enable revival of the building, which is in disuse at present. The Court is hearing petitions filed by the Super Bazar Karamchari Dalit Sangh (SBKDS) and others for its revival on the ground that the livelihood of over 1,000 employees was at stake.

When the matter came up for further hearing before a Bench of Justice B. P. Singh and Justice Tarun Chatterjee it was brought to the notice of the Court that the selected bidders could not have full control of the management as it was not permitted under the existing provisions of the MSCS Act.

While Reliance Industries is one of the bidders, Indian Potash Ltd and Indian Labour Cooperative Society have jointly given the other bid.

In the light of the legal hurdles in entrusting the building to private bidders, the Bench suggested to the Centre to amend the relevant provisions in the MSCS Act. The Bench also asked the joint bidders to match the amount quoted by Reliance Industries subject to the amendments in the Act. The Bench also asked the government to consider payment of an ex gratia amount to the employees who had not been paid salary for years. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 20, 2007.

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