Mumbai: A Public Interest Litigation is filed against the Prime Minister- Narendra Modi and other Members of Parliament of BJP in the High Court of Bombay, on which the Court has asked the Central Government and the Election Commission to file their replies.
The Public Interest litigation is preferred by the Social Activist- Hemant Patil, based at Pune, Maharashtra, who pleaded that PM- Modi and other BJP MPs have violated code of conduct in the Last Lok Sabha polls by spending huge amounts. It was further sought to maintain by petitioner that these leaders have spent the huge amounts running into crores of rupees in the Election much more than the prescribed limits of the Election Commission.
Moreover, this Public Interest Litigation was taken up for the hearing before the concerned bench of the High Court, headed by Justice- V. M. Kanade. The Bench has asked the Centre and the Election Commission to file their responses to the plea within the Four Weeks.
It was also noted in the present case that the Public Interest Litigation was filed before High Court last year, and now it is taken up for hearing, as pointed by the representing advocate- R. N. Nachave for the Petitioner. In the plea preferred by the petitioner in his filed claim, he said to have made a representation to the Election Commission on the issue and urged for an inquiry, however, no cognizance was taken by the Election Commission on such complaint, as such he found only way to bring the matter before the High Court. It was specifically pleaded in the petition, that the Election Commission’s prescribed limits for incurring the expenses during election in a constituency is Rs. 70 lakh, however, the respondents including PM- Modi had spent crores of rupees in their respective constituencies, as such the petitioner claimed that they have violated the code of conduct.
Moreover, the petitioner in his claim has also claimed for the direction against the Election Commission that it be required to conduct an inquiry into the issue and file a report to the court. Also, an action is sought under the provisions of the Representation of People Act, if the respondents found to have violated the ‘code of conduct’.