Stepping up his attack on senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse, Shiv Sena legislator and minister of state for the department Sanjay Rathod claimed he had been stripped of all his quasi-judicial powers.

“Khadse says the job of allocation of gift land to temples and tribals will not be given to me because anti-corruption bureau is probing some decisions of the previous minister. Then why has he kept the powers with himself? Instead he should have passed them on to the principal secretary,” said Rathod, a three-time legislator from Digras in Yavatmal district.

Rathod said he was a legislator and had a big following. “Will I do anything wrong which will harm my image among my electorate? Why should Khadse doubt my credentials? I am not asking for the cases which are being probed by the ACB,” he said.

As a junior minister he had no powers except technical and administrative approvals, the Sena leader said.

“Files related to these approvals number about 25 to 30 a year. I am not interested in moving around in red-beacon car without any powers. I have told Uddhavji (Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray) that I will not be able to function in this way,” Rathod said, but denied that he had handed his resignation to Thackeray.

“If ACB is probing the temple land allocation, why has Khadse taken up the issue? How many files regarding permissions for allocation of land to tribals he has cleared if the matter is subjudice?” he said.

As a minister of state, Rathod claimed, he had not signed a single file regarding any hearing, and Khadse had scrapped decisions of all the hearings he had conducted.

The Mumbai police filed a charge sheet against 11 persons, allegedly members of Ravi Pujari gang, who were arrested in connection with a plot to attack the Bollywwod director-producer Mahesh Bhatt and his brother and producer Mukesh Bhatt.

“We have filed an 1,102-page charge sheet in the special Maharashtra Control Of Organised Crime Act court,” said a crime branch official.

Police had arrested the accused on November 15 and 21 last year and claimed they had foiled a plot to kill the Bhatt brothers. The accused were also involved in the firing outside the house of Karim Morani, producer of ‘Chennai Express’, the police said.

Apart from MCOCA, they have been charged under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Arms act.

Maharashtra Governor C.V. Rao Friday joined the ‘I Love Cleanliness’ campaign initiated by around 500 volunteers of the Dawoodi Bohra community in the city, an official said.

The project was launched four years ago by the community by the late spiritual head, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, who passed away last year, under the auspices of Burhani Foundation-India (BFI) and Nazaafat, an NGO.

“It now supports the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and will be taken up over 500 cities, towns and villages across the country by the Dawoodi Bohra community members on Feb14,” said trustee Taikhoom Mohyiuddin of BFI.

He explained that to accomplish a high percentage of long-term success, a holistic approach has been adopted in the cleanliness drive, including community health and hygiene, sold waste management, fogging and neighbourhood beautification.

Prior to launching the cleanliness campaign, Governor Rao paid floral tributes at Raudat Tahera, the twin mausoleum of the late 51st Syedna Taher Saifuddin and his son 52nd Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin at Bhendi Bazaar.

Later a team of professionals, women, students and volunteer organisations besides government officials joined Rao in the cleanliness drive in south Mumbai localities.

The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal here has awarded Rs. 30.25 lakh compensation to the widow and children of a construction firm’s managing director who died in a road accident in 2009.

Vashi-based ESSDEE Foundations and Constructions Pvt Ltd, where the deceased Shekar Shetty (60) worked as MD, and the National Insurance Company were jointly and severally liable to pay Rs. 30.25 lakh to the claimants, MACT Chairman and Principal District Judge R R Gandhi observed in a recent order.

On October 26, 2009, Shetty, who lived in Navi Mumbai’s Vashi area, was going to Kolhapur in a company vehicle when its driver lost control over the wheels near Satara. As a result, the car overturned.

Shetty sustained serious injuries in the accident and died the next day at a hospital in Karad, claimants’ advocate SS Shetty told the tribunal.

The deceased’s wife Yashodha (53), daughter Supreet (19) and son Sumeet (17) later filed a claim against the construction firm and the insurance company.

The claimants told the tribunal that the accident took place as the vehicle was driven in a rash and negligent manner by the driver and therefore, the company and the insurer were liable to pay the compensation.

Shetty was the MD of the company and earned Rs. 8 lakh per annum. Due to his sudden death, they were deprived of the source of income, maintenance, support and services, the claimants informed the tribunal.

Relying on earlier rulings in similar cases, the MACT ordered the company and the insurance firm to pay the compensation to the family of the deceased.

To attract investments, Maharashtra government is developing a blueprint to rationalise power tariff for industrial consumers as rates for them are “significantly high”, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

Currently, out of the over 2.20 crore consumers of the state utility Mahavitaran, 1.99 per cent or about 4.38 lakh are industrial customers with consumption of 31,352.44 million units. Mahavitaran charges them Rs. 8 – 8.50 per unit.

“Currently, the tariffs for industrial consumers are significantly high. If we have to attract industries to the state, we will have to develop a mechanism to rationalise these tariffs,” Fadnavis said after a meeting.

“Despite being a smaller ratio among the total customers on our network, they are the largest consumers in terms of consumption. We will have to rationalise the tariffs keeping in mind that it has a customer base of 1.5 crore who consume less than 100 units and the burden cannot be passed on to industries alone,” he said.

The state provides subsidy to Mahavitaran which in-turn subsidises its low-end consumers, including farmers, who form a large part of its customer base.

Currently, Mahavitaran has 1.62 crore residential and 36.67 lakh agricultural consumers, among others.

Asked about the quantum of tariff reduction that the government is proposing for industrial consumers, the Chief Minister said, “We cannot take a decision on how much it should be. We are preparing a road-map to rationalise the power tariffs. We will soon go to the electricity regulator MERC with this proposal. But our intention is to reduce the tariffs to an extent where we will not have to subsidise Mahavitaran nor force it to pass on the burden to the low-end consumers.”

Fadnavis also said he is in talks with the Coal Ministry to ensure adequate supply of coal for power projects in the state.

“Currently, we get 20 lakh tonnes of coal from various sources. But our demand is going to increase in the days to come. We have requested the Coal Ministry to ensure that we get more fuel as we are setting up new projects. Besides, we have also requested them to evaluate the feasibility of setting up power projects at pit-heads which will result in reduction in transportation cost and in-turn the overall generation cost,” he said, adding, “we want to increase our efficiency in generation and distribution.”

A special TADA court reserved its judgement till Monday in the 1995 murder case of city-based builder Pradeep Jain in which deported gangster Abu Salem is the main accused.

“The court is likely to pronounce its verdict on February 16,” said Ujjwal Nikam, Special Public Prosecutor.

Also, this will be the first judgement in a case involving Salem in India after he was deported in 2005, he said.

According to police, on March 7, 1995, Jain was shot dead by assailants outside his Juhu bungalow after he allegedly refused to part with his huge property to Salem.

Salem, another builder Virendra Jhamb and Mehndi Hassan are facing the trial in the case. While accused Naeem Khan turned approver, another accused Riyaz Siddiqui, who had also become approve, later turned hostile in the court.

Trial of Siddiqui was later separated. Since the trial began in 2008, the prosecution has so far examined around 25 witnesses in the case while defense examined one witness.

The court, in January last year, had dropped some sections against Salem in the case after the prosecution sought for the same saying that some charges need to be withdrawn in order to maintain cordial relations between two sovereign countries – India and Portugal.

Salem, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was extradited from Portugal on November 11, 2005, after a prolonged legal battle.

The Supreme Court of Portugal, in 2012, had dismissed an appeal of the CBI which had challenged termination of his extradition. He has also moved Supreme Court of Portugal seeking directions to the Indian government to execute its order of cancelling his extradition.

In June 2012, Salem was shot at in Taloja Central jail in Navi Mumbai allegedly by gangster Devendra Jagtap alias JD, an accused in the murder case of advocate Shahid Azmi who had represented a 26/11 Mumbai attack accused.