Bombay High Court refuses urgent hearing of PIL on minister’s ‘illegal’ flight use

The PIL was mentioned before a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni on Friday.

The PIL was mentioned before a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni on Friday. (File)

The Bombay High Court on Friday refused to grant an urgent hearing to a PIL, filed by state BJP media cell chief Vishwas Pathak, seeking directions to Congress leader and State Energy Minister Nitin Raut to reimburse state power companies amounts of over Rs 40 lakh, allegedly spent on his “illegal” use of chartered flights during lockdown last year.

The PIL was mentioned before a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni on Friday.

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Pathak in his PIL said another person had obtained information from power generation and distribution companies through Right to Information (RTI). Based on the information, he alleged that during the nationwide lockdown, Raut had used chartered flights for his numerous trips to Mumbai, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Delhi for “administrative work”, and had made the debt-ridden power companies pay his bills amounting to over Rs 40 lakh.

The bench, however, said, “Till April 30, we are hearing only extremely urgent matters. Do you think this is an extremely urgent matter? Not hearing now.”

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