6 petitioners told to deposit Rs 5L each to prove bona fides

Nagpur: In a bid to crack down on frivolous litigations in public interests (PILs), Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the petitioners in six cases to deposit Rs5 lakh each to prove their bona fides.
A division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Vinay Joshi clarified that the PILs would be heard only after they deposited the amount. The bench, however, didn’t set any deadline for them to complete the formalities. The judges also refused to issue notices to respondents in the six PILs before the petitioners prove their bona fides.

Among them, four were filed by the same petitioner — Yogeshkumar Prakash Nandeshwar — through counsel Shankar Malpe. The others were by social workers Datta Rathod through counsel SS Dhengale, and Chandrabhan Kolte through Ashwin Ingole.

One of Nandeshwar’s plea was against the state home department, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli collectors, and superintendent of police (SP) of Bhandara and Gadchiroli, and G-Life India Developers and Colonisers.

According to him, the company having its head office at Sewanagar in Gwalior opened its branches in 2012 in Chandrapur, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, and Yavatmal. It collected huge amounts from gullible investors through agents and issued them debenture certificates. The company also issued renewal subscription receipts in order to renew payments in 2014.

The company, however, failed to return the amount even after the maturity mentioned in the debenture certificates, thus cheating the investors. The investors went to various branches and found them closed. The local agents expressed inability to pay as they were out of reach.

Feeling aggrieved by the company’s actions, investors approached Nandeshwar. After collecting information through his trust, the petitioner moved the complaint before the collector and SP, and also organized a demonstration with other social workers.

Rathod’s plea was for protecting the forests, where he accused deputy conservator in Pusad circle, Arvind Mundhe, of misusing his rights and administrative powers by permitting excavation work by Reliance Jio Infocomm for laying optical fibre lines on forest land.

He also filed an online complaint and moved applications to the chief conservator of forest, who directed Munde to reply within a week. He also moved a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A criminal case was filed against Munde later.

Kolte’s plea was against state school education and sports department which failed to take any action regarding alleged illegality committed by erring schools. According to him, the schools running Standard VIII and IX for last two academic sessions had no permission from the authority, thus causing loss to students. He even lodged an FIR in this regard against the schools alleging that precious taxpayers’ money was being wasted.

(With inputs from Isha Thakare)