The Bombay High Court today asked Maharashtra Police Housing and Welfare Board to file reply to a public interest litigation which alleges that six plots of land originally reserved for policemen were fraudulently allotted to housing societies of legislators and bureaucrats.
The three cooperative housing societies -- Sukhada, Shubada and Poorna -- which came up on these lands are located in Worli Sagar complex at Worli in central Mumbai.
The reply is to be filed within two weeks.
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The government lawyer informed the division bench of Justices P V Hardas and Anuja Prabhudessai today that the state had authorised the managing director of police housing and welfare board Arup Patnaik to file an affidavit because the land in question was owned by the board.
The court had earlier issued notices to these societies. The PIL seeks a CID probe into the alleged fraudulent allotment.
Petitioner, former journalist Ketan Tirodkar relies on a reply by state home department under the Right to Information.
Accordingly, in 1988, the state acquired these plots which are in a prime area, and promised to provide another piece of land in suburban Andheri for policemen in its lieu. But the plot at Ambivali in Andheri was never handed over.
The PIL seeks that lower-rank police personnel should be alloted tenements in Worli Sagar Society. Constables suffer difficult living conditions and therefore they should get priority in housing, it says.
