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New Delhi: Condemning the government's attitude in tackling the problem of politicians and bureaucrats overstaying in government bungalows, the Supreme Court on Tuesday remarked that even God cannot help this country.
Dejected by the government's unwillingness to accept the court's earlier proposal to amend laws to declare overstaying in government bungalows akin to trespassing and make it a non-bailable offence, a bench of Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice G.S. Singhvi observed: "God alone will help them (the country)."
Ferocious mood
Justice Agrawal then added: "Even God will not be able to help this country."
With the government dithering to accept the bench's earlier suggestion, it first said: "They don't apply the mind. In fact, they don't have the mind.
"These secretary-level officers don't have the guts to differ with the opinion of their clerks."
Finding the bench in a ferocious mood, Additional Solicitor General Amrendra Saran sought to reason with it saying the government has over 99,000 bungalows and the number of cases of people overstaying in them is around 300, less than 0.03 per cent.
Saran added that there are sufficient legal provisions to deal with the problem and it does not require changing the law.
The law officer's argument, however, ended up infuriating the bench further.
"Acts are there, guidelines are there, but who bothers [to get them implemented]? Nobody bothers," it said and added: "No government works. The whole government has become non-functional. That's why there are PILs [public interest litigations]."
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