Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana: PIL filed against scheme; HC refuses urgent hearing

Bombay High Court. File Pic

A city-based chartered accountant has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court against the Maharashtra government's 'Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana', a cash benefit scheme for women, citing that it would put an additional burden on taxpayers.

The petitioner sought quashing of the Government Resolution dating July 9 introducing the scheme, under which a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500 will be transferred into bank accounts of women in the 21 to 65 age group whose family income was less than Rs 2.5 lakh.

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The scheme was announced in the state budget.

The petitioner's advocate, Owais Pechkar, on Friday, sought an urgent hearing of the plea and an interim order to stay the implementation of the scheme, as the amount will be disbursed to beneficiaries later this month.

A division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar, however, refused and said the plea would be taken up for hearing as per the auto-listing system.

"Do not make the system of auto listing redundant. Urgency means demolition or if someone is going to be hanged," Chief Justice Upadhyaya said.
As per the High Court website, the PIL is likely to come up for hearing on August 5.

The petitioner, Naveed Abdul Saeed Mulla, claimed that through the impugned government scheme, "an additional burden is put on direct and indirect taxpayers/exchequers, as the taxes are collected for infrastructure development, not for irrational cash schemes".

"Such cash benefit schemes are synonyms to bribery or gift to voters of a certain class to vote in favour of certain candidate on behalf of parties in present coalition government contesting in the upcoming state assembly elections," he said.

Such a scheme was against the provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and amounted to "corrupt practice".

The PIL further claimed the scheme for women would cost around Rs 4,600 crore, and it is a "huge burden on Maharashtra, which already has a debt of Rs 7.8 lakh crore and therefore, same be quashed".

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