All political parties are in favour of freebies, says SC

New Delhi: All political parties including BJP are in favour of freebies and due to this a judicial attempt has been made to deal with it, said the Supreme Court on Tuesday while deliberating with a PIL opposing promises of such handouts by the parties during polls. The top court also rapped Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and some of its leaders for making statements on the issue of freebies and the

judicial intervention on the ground that welfare measures are for uplifting marginalised people and cannot be held as freebies .

On this issue, I can say all political parties are on one side including BJP. Everybody wants freebies. That is the reason we made an attempt, a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Hima Kohli and C T Ravikumar observed during the hearing. The intention was to initiate a wider public debate on the issue and for this purpose, the setting up of the committee was mooted, the bench said, adding We have to see what is a freebie and what is welfare."

The bench said it has to balance the equity and it was not against any policy of the government or the scheme.

"Some said, we have no right to entertain. No right to look into the issues...See, if tomorrow, somebody comes to us and says that we are not the beneficiaries of the scheme... Can we say no? We cannot deal with this. See, we have to balance it. We are not against any policy of the government. We are not against any schemes...," the bench said. During the hearing, as soon as senior advocate P Wilson commenced submitting on behalf of the DMK, the bench referred to some statements of party leaders and came down on them. "Mr. Wilson (senior advocate P Wilson, counsel for DMK), I am sorry to say this. I wanted to say so many things. But I am not saying so being the Chief Justice of India. The party and the minister which he (a lawyer) is talking about...I don't think that wisdom only belongs to a particular person or a particular party. We are also responsible..," the CJI said.

At the outset, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, whose assistance has been sought by the bench, mooted the idea of setting up a panel of the statutory finance commission.