A public interest litigation (PIL)has been filed alleging Uddhav Thackeray and his family holding disproportionate assets in the Bombay High Court .
It asked for agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to prove the matter.
The plea came up for hearing on Wednesday before a bench of Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice RN Laddha who questioned the petitioner named Gauri Bhide, to clear the procedural objections raised by the High Court registry which was raised while the fresh petition are filed.
The Bench said the petitioner needs to clear out the office objections and when the objections are removed and petition is ready, the same will be taken up for hearing.
It then listed the matter for hearing on November 16.
The PIL filed by Bhide claims that the family of Uddhav, (his son Aditya, and wife Rashmi) have never disclosed any service, profession or business as their official source of income; they still have properties worth crores in Mumbai and Raigad districts.
It was stated in the PIL that the CBI and ED in Maharashtra revealed that close aides of Uddhav, Aditya and Rashmi were closely interrogated and were under the radar of the agencies.
The petitioner further said that it is a surprise that periodicals ‘Marmik’ and ‘Saamna’ which are run by the Thackeray family have never being subjected to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC).
It further claimed that during the lockdown, when print media in the country was facing heavy losses, whereas the Prabodhan Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. owned by Thackeray family, showed a huge turnover of ₹42 crores and booked a profit of ₹11.5 crores.
The plea said that the unaccounted money gathered from BMC and other sources might have been dishonestly digested into the accounts of the above mentioned company and fictitious figures of profit have been shown for this digestion.
She also that although she had filed a complaint with the Police Commissioner, Mumbai along with marking it to Economic Offences Wing (EOW), no action was taken and neither was she informed about the status of her complaint.
The petition therefore sought directions to the State to take cognisance of the complaint.
The petitioner also said that she has a hunch that activist Shri Kirit Somaiya or even both the respondent central agencies must have huge information and links pertaining to the respondents 5 to 8