Supreme Court slaps Rs 50,000 fine, orders Tejashwi Yadav to vacate government bungalow

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the plea of former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, challenging the Patna High Court order asking him to vacate a government bungalow meant for the deputy chief minister and ordered the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader to shift to an accommodation for the Leader of the Opposition. He was also slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000 for challenging the decision. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna pronounced the verdict.

The sprawling bungalow at 5, Deshratan Marg was allotted to Yadav in 2015 upon his appointment as the deputy chief minister of the then 'Grand Alliance' government headed by Nitish Kumar. The Nitish Kumar government has asked Yadav to swap residences with Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who lives in 1, Polo Road, situated about a kilometre away.

Yadav, who is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, had filed an appeal against the Patna High Court judgment turning down his petition challenging the Bihar government order to vacate his bungalow to make way for deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

On January 7, the Patna High Court had dismissed Tejashwi Yadav's petition challenging the Bihar government's order asking him to vacate the bungalow allotted to him while he was the deputy chief minister. Yadav had appealed against the single-judge order of October 6 which asked him to swap his accommodation with his successor.

The Patna High Court had in its order said "the petitioner has been allotted a bungalow matching his status as a minister in the government at 1, Polo Road, Patna... He cannot raise complaint on the decision so taken simply because the present bungalow is more suited to him."