New Delhi, Sept 12: The Delhi High Court today allowed an advocate to be impleaded as a party in the public interest litigation (PIL) against the Centre's decision to waive off Rs 1.13 crore import duty on a Ferrari car gifted to star cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. A division bench of Chief Justice B C Patel and Justice A K Sikri allowed advocate T K A Padmanabhan's impleadment plea. The matter is already fixed for hearing on September 23.
Earlier, the bench had had "dismissed as withdrawn" Padmanabhan's PIL in the matter on the ground that a similar petition was pending before it. However, he had been given liberty to implead himself in the PIL already pending before the court. Raising questions over the government's decision to grant Rs 1.13 crore duty waiver to Tendulkar, the court had on August 13 taken suo motu cognizance of newspaper reports in the matter and issued notices to the batting maestro and the ministries of finance and sports.
When the matter came up for hearing on August 19, the Centre sought to defend its action terming it a policy decision which had been "blown out of proportion". Amicus curiae Arjun Bhandari had submitted that it was not an issue of Tendulkar alone. The entire issue of duty exemption under the customs act had to be examined.
"Let us go through the records and see who all have been given duty exemption in the last three years under Section 25(2) of the act," he had said.
Bureau Report