PIL Filed At Bombay High Court Challenging Maharashtra Government Resolution Regarding LLDP

Mumbai, 22nd December 2022: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) Petition has been filed before the Bombay High Court challenging the Maharashtra Government Resolution dated 22.06.2022, wherein the Planning Department of the State Government, for the first time, has permitted MLAs of the State to execute works/projects under the Legislator Local Development Programme (LLDP) scheme in Maharashtra using public funds generated from taxpayers for projects to be developed on land belonging to co-operative housing societies. The PIL has been filed through Gayatri Singh and Ronita Bhattacharya, Advocates at the Bombay High Court.

Petitioners had undertaken prolonged communication since September 2021 with Maharashtra State’s Planning Dept, Legal Dept, Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, Governor, Election Commission of India, State Election Commission and State Political Party Leaders to scrap and re-track this intention. When the impugned Government Resolution became reality, the petitioners Qaneez Sukhrani, Ravindra Sinha, and Pushkar Kulkarni – filed the Public Interest Litigation Petition seeking to quash and set aside the resolution. They say it will lead to buying of votes, corruption and electoral malpractices as public funds allotted for the implementation of the LLDP scheme could now be put to use for the private interest by the creation of amenities within the premises of cooperative housing societies, in contravention of Article 282 of the Constitution of India. The Petitioners have submitted in the Petition that the impugned Government Resolution can result in rampant corruption amongst building/construction related middle-men, affluent co-operative housing societies, MLAs and their staff, and is also a blatant act of vote bank appeasement and would amount to a complete abuse and misappropriation of public funds.