Mamata Banerjee's party seeks distance from libraries controversy in West Bengal

Kolkata:  Mamata Banerjee's party today tried to distance her from the controversy that has erupted after all public libraries were ordered to drop all English dailies and most other newspapers including the Ananda Bazar Patrika, which is the state's most-read paper.  

On Twitter this evening, her party's MP, Derek O'Brien said,  "To drag the CM's name into this 'controversy' is unfair.  Are we suggesting she starts micromanaging even library department lists?"  He added, "Circular issued by small time library services dept."
Last night, a circular signed by the Special Secretary, Library Services told 2500 public libraries what newspapers they can stock. All English dailies were to be removed, the notice said. Only eight papers made the cut  - five five Bengali, one Hindi and two Urdu dailies. Of these eight publications, four have editors or senior journalists who have been elected to the Rajya Sabha on Trinamool Congress tickets.   The circular states that public funds could not be spent on "any papers published or purported to be published by any political party." But the list of banned papers includes only one publication with direct links to a political party- the Ganashakti, which is a CPM mouthpiece.
Mr O'Brien says that the Times of India will also be stocked at government-funded libraries.
"This is worse than censorship; this has shades of fascism," said Sitaram Yechury from the Left, the main opposition party in West Bengal. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has appreciated the move, countered Library Services Minister Abdul Karim Chowdhury to local TV channels.  
"I have no idea why she has done this; she is trying to control what I read," said Pradeep Bhattacharjee, the president of the Congress, which is a partner in Ms Banerjee's government.  

The issue was also brought up in the state Assembly yesterday by a Congress MLA who called the government circular undemocratic and urged the chief minister to have it withdrawn. Mamata Banerjee was not present in the Assembly at that time.

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2G: Govt seeks review of verdict questioning policy

New Delhi:  The government today moved the Supreme Court questioning its verdict holding the policy of first-come-first-served in 2G spectrum allocation as unconstitutional while cancelling 122 licences saying it has entered into the exclusive domain of the executive and beyond the limits of judicial review.

The review petition contended the top court's prescription of a single method for distribution of all natural resources, including spectrum, through "auction" route is contrary to the principle of separation of powers embodied in the Constitution.

The government said the February 2 judgement cancelling the 2G licences "is liable to be reviewed since there are errors which are apparent on the face of the record" and there are other sufficient reasons for reviewing the verdict delivered by a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly (since retired).

While pointing out flaws in the policy of auction, the petition said there was error in the judgement that State is duty bound to follow this procedure in all cases, as no reasonable authority could hold that in all cases, natural resources must go to the highest bidder.

The government also questioned the top court for interfering into the policy decision and said the judgement in respect of the policy is "directly contrary to the settled law."

It said the remarks made in the judgement that the policy of first-come-first-served adopted in the 2G spectrum was "lopsided" and "flawed" and was not in public interest needs reconsideration.

Quoting several top court judgements, the petition said "the essence of policy-making and governance is the weighing and balancing of different values and considerations, which is the role of the executive, and it is not permissible for the court to take this exercise upon itself and engage in policy-making, both for the reason that it is not its role to do so and it does not have the expertise to do so."

"For that, the court travelled beyond the established limits of judicial review and entered the exclusive domain of the executive when it held in the impugned judgment that the policy was flawed on the ground that the court disagreed with the weight attached by the executive to the different factors underlying the decision to adopt the policy," the petition said.

The government submitted the Supreme Court had erred in holding the first-come-first-served policy as "flawed" and "lopsided" as the considerations of maximizing short-term revenue for the state outweighed promoting growth, affordability, penetration of wireless services in semi-urban and rural areas, as well as maintaining a level-playing field between existing and new licensees for 2G spectrum.

It said that in holding the policy to be not in public interest, the court's finding was "entirely contrary to the jurisprudence of judicial review, which does not permit a court to hold a policy decision to be flawed only because the court has a different view from that of the executive of what lies in public interest."

Further, the government said that within the limited scope of a judicial review, the court "ought not to have disapproved of the policy on the ground that the state could have earned greater revenue by following a different policy."

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