A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court sought a direction to the city Police Commissioner to file a case of cheating and forgery against MP and yesteryear actress Hema Malini and Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse on charges of illegally allotting land for her dance academy at a nominal price.
The PIL, filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar, is slated to come up for hearing in due course.
It alleged there have been a series of judgements of the High Court and the Supreme Court stating that public property cannot be allotted by the state without issuing advertisement inviting applications from the needy people.
The petition also alleged that a plot of land was recently allotted to the actress in suburban Andheri for instituting an academy to train students in Indian classical dance of Bharat Natyam in violation of the high court orders and norms.
The petition said that Hema Malini Dance Academy vide its letter dated July 6, 2007, had urged the government to allot alternative land against the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) land in Versova.
The Academy had asked the government to allot 2,000 sq metres of the reserved land for the Dance Academy and proposed to develop a garden on the remaining land by its own trust. This was accepted by the government on July 30, 2010, the PIL said.
The state government subsequently allotted 2,000 sq metres from a total land ad-measuring 29360.50 sq metres reserved for the garden and situated in Amboli area in Andheri on December 23, 2015, in an order issued by Deputy Secretary Madhav Kale, it added.
The PIL further alleged that the decision was taken after a meeting chaired by the Principal Secretary (Revenue) on December 19, 2015, leading to allotment of land for a pittance amount of Rs. 70,000 for a plot worth crores of rupees restored for the Hema Malini Dance Academy.
