High Court allows Padam Chettri as intervenor in Darnal’s petition challenging Patra Commission

GANGTOK, 23 Nov: The high court of Sikkim has allowed the intervening application of Padam Chettri, state BJP president, in the petition filed by JB Darnal against the state government, particularly the Patra Commission, and seeking a CBI enquiry into the corruption allegations against members of the ruling party.
The division bench of the High Court comprising of Chief Justice P Kohli and Justice SP Wangdi, however, made known that the intervenor will not be permitted to enlarge the scope of the petition. In fact, A Marairputham, Advocate General who was present on the directions of the court, had attempted to raise objections to the inclusion of Padam Chettri to the petition on the ground that an attempt had been made on the part of the intervenor to enlarge the scope of the petition. In simple terms, this means that the intervening application filed by Mr. Chettri had additional points beyond the original petition filed by Mr. Darnal. An intervening application by definition has to be similar in nature to the original petition. The court had suggested to the counsel of Padam Chettri that if he could file a separate petition itself.
The division bench acknowledged the apprehension put forward by the Advocate General and directed that the intervening application was being allowed but it would not consider any additional issues or points that were not already in the main petition. The date set for hearing of arguments is 04 March, 2013.
The petition raises questions and allegations on the RK Patra Commission instituted by the state government to look into allegations of misconduct and misappropriation of public funds by the Chief Minister and members of his government. The constitution of this Commission tantamounts to a parallel enquiry particularly when, as claimed by Mr. Darnal, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has already conducted an enquiry and submitted a preliminary report. The CBI after submitting its report to the state government on its enquiry had sought permission to register a case, it has been contended.
It is known that the RK Patra enquiry commission is enquiring into the allegations leveled against various politicians and bureaucrats based on the allegations made by the SPCC in its publication called Sikkim Mahaloot/ Burmaloot. While SPCC members approached the CBI to investigate into their allegations, the state government here had set up an enquiry commission to look into the allegations. The Commission had been set up on 07 January, 2011.