CHANDER GUPTA
Recently I came across the news about the ex-Chief Minister of National Capital Territory (NCT) checking into the official residence of a Rajya Sabha member in New Delhi after he had to vacate the official CM bungalow. Hearing of this turn of events, I was reminded of an old incident of subletting of an official accommodation by a government employee who happened to be my uncle.
I first noticed the practice of subletting nearly 45 years back when I used to occasionally stay at my uncle’s official flat in the posh Safdarjung Development Area (SDA) during my visits to New Delhi. My uncle, who served in Delhi Development Authority (DDA), had been allotted a modest 3-room flat on the third floor in DDA Colony.
My uncle, after getting divorce from his wife early in marital life, used to live alone in the flat. The practice of subletting was rampant. The employees, who commuted to nearby hometowns, used to sublet their flats allotted to them in Delhi. Some employees resorted to the partial subletting also. Under partial subletting, the allottee employee sublet only a part of the flat while self-occupying the remaining part.
My uncle, living alone in a three-room flat, also succumbed to the temptation of subletting a room of his compact flat. He sublet a room to a nurse employed in the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which was located near to SDA. Her duty hours were slotted in the night shift, whereas my uncle went to the office during the daytime.
During my occasional visit to New Delhi, I would be staying with my uncle who was single and a divorcee. A couple of things struck me as noteworthy while staying in his flat. One was that the newspaper delivery boy threw the rolled-up newspaper from the street directly in the small balcony of the third floor flat. The delivery boy’s throw was so precise that he hardly missed the target. Second thing which excited me immensely was that the historical Qutub Minar was visible from a window in his flat. The environment was free from haze and smog in the 1970s. Last but not the least, there was the tenant nurse whom I rarely saw because she would be sleeping during the daytime and be away from her duties during the night time.
My uncle shored up his modest salary income with the rent received through the partial subletting. Even 45 years back when I was just a teenager, I was aware of the impropriety of subletting an official accommodation. My uncle and others like him in that era sublet their accommodations, whether fully or partially, stealthily in a hush-hush manner.
I had forgotten about this subletting episode in which my uncle was involved until now when I heard that a Rajya Sabha MP had partially sublet the official accommodation provided to him by the government by virtue of his being a Member of Parliament (MP). The official residence is provided to accommodate the allottee and the immediate kin. Letting others stay tantamount to subletting. I wonder if legislators are exempt from the prohibition which is applicable for government employees against subletting official accommodation allotted to them.