Actor Kangana Ranaut at the Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai. (Express photo: Ganesh Shirsekar) The Bombay High Court vacation bench on Tuesday said that there was no urgency in hearing plea, challenging fees paid to senior advocate Aspi Chinoy for representing the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Kangana Ranaut’s petition against demolition work carried out at her Bandra office on September 9.
A division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice Abhay Ahuja was hearing plea filed last month by one Sharad Datta Yadav, who had filed an RTI application concerning the fees paid by civic body to the senior counsel and got a response that nearly Rs 82.5 lakh were paid to the lawyer.
The petitioner referred to the past judgment and said that matters pertaining to demolition of unauthorised structures were declared as “petty matters” and engaging the senior advocate was unnecessary.
In light of this, petitioner Yadav sought a CBI inquiry and directions from court to BMC Commissioner to file response explaining reasons behind policy of engaging service of senior counsel in “petty matters”.
The BMC’s counsel Joel Carlos opposed the plea and argued that Yadav’s plea was not maintainable and the civic body had the right to choose its lawyer.
On Tuesday, when the matter came up for hearing, the bench questioned, “What is the urgency and why move before the vacation bench? Why are such petitions being filed?”
The HC posted further hearing to January 11 to be heard by regular court.
