MLA Ravindra Waikar From Uddhav Thackeray Faction Approaches Bombay High Court For Equal Allocation of Fund For Opposition MLAs
The MLA from the Uddhav Thackrey Faction has alleged that the state's action of allocation of funds is arbitrary, unfair, malafide, and contrary to the public interest.
A division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice AS Chandurkar and Justice MW Chandwani has asked the state government to file its reply in a plea filed by Ravindra Waikar, an MLA of Uddhav Thackrey Faction.
Waikar in his plea has sought equal allocation of funds for the local development of Maharashtra to all the MLAs without any discrimination among MLAs based on their political parties.
The plea states that such funds are allocated for the urban development of slums, the development of basic infrastructure, and the reallocation of slum dwellers.
The plea states that more than 45000 crores were allocated by the state government through different authorities. It further states that the majority of the funds were allocated to MLAs from Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
In his plea, the MLA has sought direction for quashing and setting aside the allocation of funds by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority and has pleaded that the court to issue directions to the authorities to allocate the funds without discriminating between the MLA and MLC.
The petition filed through Advocate Sidhasen Borulkar also states that Ravindra Waikar's constituency itself has a lot of slums but he and other members of his party are not being allocated such funds.
The plea further states that the state is expected to act with the principle of equality.
"The Petitioner states that the members of opposition parties and citizens within their constituencies have legitimate expectation to be treated similarly because the State is expected to act with the principle of equality. The public interest demands that the State's action has to be complied with the legitimate expectation of the Citizens of the City of Mumbai. The Citizens who expected that they should be given civic amenities equal to those who are residing within the Constituency of Members of the Ruling Party," the plea reads.
Case Title: Ravindra Dattaram Waikar vs State of Maharashtra & Ors