The Bombay High Court today restrained Maharashtra government from disbursing money to MLAs from a proposed special fund of Rs 237 crores to provide basic amenities to slum dwellers.
The division bench headed by Justice S J Vajifdar gave the direction on a public interest litigation filed by Shiv Sena MLA Ravindra Waikar, who alleges that ruling party MLAs are set to get more funds than the Opposition MLAs.
Petitioner's lawyer Satish Borulkar, however, said he was removing the name of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan from the list of respondents.
Government pleader Sandeep Shinde told the court that the new fund, with a corpus of Rs 237 crore, was yet to be disbursed.
The bench then restrained the state from disbursing the fund money to the legislators till January 9, the next date of hearing.
As per the PIL, the fund of Rs 237 crore is meant for providing amenities through 'Zopadpatti Sudhar Mandal' (slum improvement committee). Of this, Rs 189.60 crore were earmarked for 2013-14.
But the government has decided to allocate Rs six crore for the MLAs of the ruling parties, while the Opposition MLAs are to receive only Rs two crore. This is unjust, the PIL says.
