The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a plea by former Bihar legislator Avanish Kumar Singh challenging the Bihar government’s demand for over ₹20 lakh as penal rent for unauthorized occupation of a government bungalow after demitting office. The court remarked that “one should not hold on to government accommodation endlessly.”
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justices K. Vinod Chandran and N.V. Anjaria was hearing Singh’s appeal against the Patna High Court’s dismissal of his intra-court appeal. The High Court had upheld the state’s demand of ₹20,98,757 as penal rent for Singh’s alleged unauthorized stay in Quarter No. 3 on Taylor Road in Patna.
The apex court granted the former MLA liberty to take recourse to remedies “as permissible in law” but ultimately dismissed the plea as withdrawn.
Singh, a five-time legislator from the Dhaka constituency, had been allotted the quarter during his tenure. Despite resigning from the Assembly on March 14, 2014, and losing the parliamentary elections that year, Singh continued to reside in the bungalow until May 12, 2016, during which the accommodation had already been reallocated to a cabinet minister.
In his defence, Singh argued that his subsequent nomination to the State Legislature Research and Training Bureau entitled him to retain the same benefits as an MLA under a 2008 government notification. However, the High Court had rejected this argument, stating that the notification did not extend to continued occupation of ministerial quarters.
The division bench also pointed out that Singh had earlier withdrawn a similar petition without seeking the liberty to refile it, rendering his latest plea non-maintainable.
“The notification nowhere provides that a former MLA will continue to retain, of his own will, the same government accommodation/quarter which he had earlier occupied as MLA,” the High Court had noted, affirming the state’s right to demand penal rent for the extended occupancy.
