SC scraps 296 petrol pump licences

A judges’ panel had found these allotments were due to ‘extraneous considerations’

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has cancelled allotment of nearly 296 petrol pumps and petroleum products outlets, some of which were also owned by the relatives of Congress and BJP leaders.

A three-member bench approved the report of a Judges Committee which said that the allotments could have been made due to some “extraneous considerations”, and suggested the cancellation of almost 73 per cent of the tainted allotments examined by it.

The bench has kept the matter pending and granted three weeks time to the owners to file their objections.

The scam came to light four years ago, when a national daily had exposed the NDA government’s misuse of discretionary quota, and gave details of the beneficiaries who were neither qualified nor enjoyed any merit except being some political heavy weights.

The panel was then constituted to look into the scam. The panel scrutinised 409 cases of alleged tainted allotments in various states.