New Delhi: The Supreme Court on September 13 directed the Centre to place before it entire material on the basis of which the Union Cabinet had taken a decision to bifurcate and create seven new railway zones.

The direction was issued by a Bench comprising Justice G B Pattanaik and Justice Ruma Pal on a Special Leave Petition (SLP) by the Federation of Railway Officers Association (FROA) against the Delhi and Kolkata High Courts' orders dismissing their petitions challenging the government order.

The petition comes in the wake of recent controversy over the splitting of Eastern Railway Zone, which the parties in West Bengal had opposed.

While fixing October 4 as next hearing of the SLP, the Court without issuing notice to government, directed Attorney General Soli Sorabjee to file an affidavit within three weeks.

"It will be permissible for the Court to examine whether there is any material on the basis of which the decision was arrived at by the government," the Court said.

Senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, appearing for the FROA, alleged the decision to create seven more railway zones by the government was "politically motivated" ignoring the reports of various expert committees which were against splitting of the existing zones.

When petitioners' counsel submitted that they should also be supplied the copies of the government papers, the Court made it clear that they would not get it.

"Don't aspire that we are going to issue any injunction on it", the Bench observed and told petitioners' counsel, "We are interested to examine the records ourselves."

PTI