Loses case and face, Leaseholders won
Mumbai. In a litigation from Mumbai to Delhi, the MMRDA administration has spent Rs 1.09 crore in the case of a court of land located in BKC. Despite fielding an army of eminent lawyers like Venugopal and Kumbakoni, the leaseholders, the MMRDA lost its case as well as its face. It’s reveals in a RTI query filed by RTI Activist Anil Galgali. Surprisingly, Maniyar Srivastava Associates has been paid the highest Rs 1 crore even after losing the case, which is raising fingers towards inept handling of the day to day administration.
RTI activist Anil Galgali had sought information with regards to a court case filed by MMRDA administration wherein it had issued notices to Raghulila Builders, M/s Naman Hotel Limited, Reliance Industries, Indian Newspaper Society and other builders regarding outstanding dues.
The MMRDA administration informed Anil Galgali that the MMRDA administration has paid Rs 1.09 crore to lawyers in various cases in this regard. The highest amount of Rs 96.43 lakh has been spent in the litigation filed against Raghulila Hotels Pvt Ltd. On behalf of MMRDA, KK Venugopal fought the case while Raghulila Builders roped in Harish Salway and Mukul Rohatgi.
Ashutosh Kumbhconi, who appeared for the Maratha reservation, also charged Rs 1.50 lakh for a hearing but the MMRDA administration did not get any relief. Reply has enough indication that MMRDA spent lavishly lakhs of rupees on every hearing, but failed to won the case.
In a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde and MMRDA Commissioner R. A. Rajeev, Anil Galgali said that the authority’s weak policy gave an opportunity to opposite parties and MMRDA did not act in time. Galgali regretted that the hordes of eminent lawyers were also ineffective and in lieu of charging the dues, the money collected from the people’s tax has been spent on litigation.
While questioning the moves of MMRDA, Galgali has asked why was the same company retained even after losing the case and why was the private company not excluded?
