New Delhi:
A house has landed Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in the centre of a controversy. Ms Kumar has been issued a bill of Rs 1.98 crore as pending rent by the estates department of the Urban Development Ministry for occupying a government residence despite losing entitlement.
According to the ministry, the due rent has not been paid yet.
According to documents accessed through RTI, the house was re-allotted to Meira Kumar in 1986 after the death of her father former Deputy Prime minister Jagjivan Ram.
Technically, Kumar lost entitlement to the bungalow once she took up the post of the Speaker and was allotted another house.
But the land owning agency, Central Public Works Department (CPWD), says that the bungalow is still in her possession.
However, a statement, issued on the behalf of the Lok Sabha Speaker, says that Ms Kumar and her family had vacated the house in question, 6, Krishna Menon Marg, back in 2002 and the Municipal Corporation had disconnected the water and electricity supplies.
The Department of Estates, in an RTI reply, has given a list of 10 persons including "family members of Late Indrani Devi ie Smt Mira Kumar (sic)" and dues against them for occupation of bungalows.
The department was replying to a query by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Aggrawal on pending rent dues towards persons having occupied government premises after losing entitlement.
"I was trying to find out how these bungalows were being used for memorials , whereas the parliament has already ensured govt bungalows will not be used as memorials anymore. But her family was still not vacating it. Hence I filed the RTI (patch) there seems to be some sort of tie up between all the agencies like CPWD, NDMC etc to confuse the issue even further." said Mr Aggarwal.
The speaker's house has always been above politics. But after a spotless record for many years, this sudden bit of controversy definitely does not help Ms Kumar's image.