The Bombay high court in Aurangabad on Friday slapped a Rs1 lakh cost on a petitioner after dismissing a PIL seeking the court’s intervention to prevent MNS head Raj Thackeray from holding a public rally on May 1 here.
In an urgent email to the principal secretary of the home department and the commissioner of police in Aurangabad, assistant government pleader (AGP) A R Kale noted, “The matter was mentioned at 5:30pm on Friday before the bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and Justice S G Mehare. The Court rejected the PIL, with cost of Rs 1 lakh on the background that the Commissioner of Police, Aurangabad has taken all care while granting permission for meeting.”
On the evening of May 1, Thackeray is expected to speak at the Marathwada Sanskritik Mandal grounds.Jaikishan Kamble, the head of the Republican Party of India’s Aurangabad district youth wing, had filed the appeal through his lawyer, Ajay Kanawade, requesting an urgent hearing on the grounds that the demonstration will be place in two days.
Raj Thackeray, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president, arrived in Pune on Friday for his much-anticipated rally in Aurangabad, after being catapulted into the state political mainstream with a noisy anti-loudspeakers campaign.
Raj, 53, is scheduled to kick out his new political journey at the Aurangabad rally, hoping to rattle the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which is led by his estranged cousin, Shiv Sena President and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, as well as the Nationalist Congress Party-Congress.
He praised Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday for destroying over 11,000 loudspeakers from various places of worship in the state. Following the conditional approval of the May 1 march, 2,000 police officers and other forces, as well as CCTVs, dog squads, metal screenings, drone monitoring, and other security measures, will be on high alert at the massive S.M. Ground in Aurangabad.