Jass Kaur Bindra
Public interest litigation was filed against Nitin Raut who is the cabinet Minister.
The litigation was filed in order to recover the amount which was spent on unlawful charter flight.
Basically the cabinet minister misused his power and spent the money of Maharashtra State Electricity Board for arranging a flight for him which wasn’t justified.
The public interest litigation demands the recovery of the amount back to Maharashtra State Electricity Board which was spent on the charter flight.
The public interest litigation was filed by Vishwas Pathak. He is the chief of the mass media department of Bhartiya Janata Party.
The public interest litigation was filed to a bench comprising two judges. The two Justices are Justice Girish Kulkarni, Chief Justice of Bombay High Court Dipankar Datta.
The lawyer from Vishwas Pathak side, seeked for an early hearing in the matter.
The contention raised in the issue was that the cabinet minister made use of his power to book those charter flights and reimbursement of money should be done back to Maharashtra State Electricity Board.
The Bombay High Court stated, “Till April 30 we are hearing only extremely urgent matters. Do you think this is an extremely urgent matter? Not now.”
The High Court found this matter not to be of any importance which is to be heard at an urgency moreover no future date was set for hearing the case.
Nitin Raut against whom the public interest litigation was brought stated, “I am not aware of any public interest litigation and have not been served or received any copy yet.”
The public interest litigation made Maharashtra State ElectricityHolding Company, and Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited as the stakeholders.
The public interest litigation stated ,“In reply to the queries under Right to information Act from Maharashtra State Electricity Board holding company limited that the Minister had used chartered flights at the cost of rupees 14.4 5 lacs for two trips to Nagpur last June and July for important administrative work.”
The companies which are the stakeholder in the matter clarified in another Right to information that rupees 29 lakh was issued for not just two rather three chartered flights.