Supreme Court on freebies: 'Why doesn't the Centre call all-party meeting to discuss this?'

The Centre refused to take the lead, and instead batted for a court-appointed panel to give recommendations on freebies. Amicus Kapil Sibal renewed calls for Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) based mechanism to check for fiscal discipline. The Aam Aadmi Party voiced against the court-appointed panel and said voters are not as gullible as assumed by the Centre.

The CJI pointed out that the biggest problem is who will head the committee and it's a huge canvas. "Who is in opposition today can come into power tomorrow and so they will come and have to manage this. So things like freebies etc which can destroy the economy have to be looked at and I just cannot pass a mandamus. Thus there needs to be a debate."

All political parties including BJP are in favour of freebies and due to this a judicial attempt has been made to deal with it, the top court said on Tuesday while deliberating with a PIL opposing promises of such handouts by the parties during polls.

"Some said, we have no right to entertain. No right to look into the issues...See, if tomorrow, somebody comes to us and says that we are not the beneficiaries of the scheme... Can we say no? We cannot deal with this. See, we have to balance it. We are not against any policy of the government. We are not against any schemes...," the bench had said.