Responding to actor Kangana Ranaut’s plea before the Bombay High Court where she had demanded Rs 2 crores as damages, the BMC has said that her plea is an ‘abuse of law’ and that the High Court should dismiss it. In an affidavit, BMC has also demanded that costs be imposed on Kangana Ranaut for making this plea before the High Court.
“The writ petition and the reliefs sought for therein constitute an abuse of process. The Petition should not be entertained and should be dismissed with costs,” the petition by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
In its reply, Wled through advocate Joel Carlos, the BMC alleged that Ranaut falsely stated that the alterations were as per permission previously granted by it.
It was on the 9th of September that the BMC had demolished a part of Kangana Ranaut’s Pali Hill bungalow claiming that she had made several structural changes to the house without taking due permission. The move was widely seen as a political vendetta against Kangana Ranaut since she has been speaking up against Bollywood and especially, against the Shiv Sena and the Mumbai Police for their shoddy handling of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
It is thus an ironical twist of events that after taking steps that were in violation of the High Court order, BMC is now claiming that Kangana Ranaut’s plea is an “abuse of law”.
Thereafter, Kangana Ranaut had approached the Bombay High Court asking for a stay of demolition and had been granted the same by the Court. On the 15th of September, Ranaut amended her plea, seeking a compensation of Rs 2 crore from the BMC.
Kangana Ranaut plea demanding Rs 2 crore as damages from BMC and the politics of vendetta by Maharashtra govt
In her amended plea, Ranaut alleged that the BMC’s decision to demolish her property was a direct consequence of her comments against the Maharashtra government.
The actor had approached the court after BMC at the behest of the Uddhav Tackeray-led government in Maharashtra, on September 9, demolished her property in Bandra worth crores, within just 24 hours of a ‘stop work’ notice and at a time when such demolition activities have been prohibited by a High Court order.- Advertisement –
A division bench led by Justice S J Kathawalla had stayed the demolition, saying that the civic body’s actions seemed “malafide” (having dubious intentions).
However, until then, the BMC had already demolished at least 40 per cent of the property on the ground that some illegal alterations were carried out at the property without permission.
BMC’s action violated Bombay HC’s order
The demolition drive which was carried out by the BMC was in violation of the order of the Bombay High Court that directed the government, Municipal corporations and other authorities against carrying out any demolition, eviction and holding auctions of attached properties across the State of Maharashtra till September 30.
The BMC did not take prior permission from the court as required by the March 19 order. It is to be seen whether contempt charges will be slapped against the BMC for not complying with the order of the High Court.
The court is slated to hear the matter on September 22.
