Bombay HC slams Ashish Shelar for delaying PIL over graveyard
The court had allowed Mr Shelar to intervene in the petition.
Mumbai: Pulling up the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) city president, Ashish Shelar, the Bombay high court on Tuesday asked him to use the state’s Legislative Assembly to solve the issue related to the allotment of land for a graveyard for the Muslim community in Bandra. The HC, while hearing a PIL seeking issuance of directions to concerned authorities for allotting the graveyard, said that it does “not require his assistance” and asked him to go and work on the same in the Assembly.
The high court also impleaded the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority (Mhada) as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed the court that it was the owner of the land at Bandra Reclamation where the contentious graveyard is to be allotted. A division bench headed by chief justice Dr Manjula Chellur and Justice G.S. Kulkarni was hearing the PIL filed by Furqan Qureshi, seeking a plot of land in H West ward for a graveyard. The court had allowed Mr Shelar to intervene in the petition.
On Tuesday, when the matter came up for hearing, Mr Shelar’s lawyer informed the court that he had not been able to file the affidavit, which the court directed him to do last week.