By SHUBHAJIT Chakraborty
Mumbai, March 6 – A former Shiv Sena legislator Sitaram Dalvi has been charged by Bombai high court for vandalism in a five star hotel organized against retrenchment of some employees. He was asked to compensate by coughing up Rs 5 Lakh to the hotel. The ruling is the result of of petition filed by public and private organization against the vandalism of political parties.
Mr. Dalvi, a former MLA from Andheri had led the Sena to ransack Hotel Sahar Intercontinental in January 2009 against the recession of employees.
Bombai High Court has granted one day to Sena leader to find any possibility of compensate from the party’s fund. Mr. Dalvi said in his petition that he was unable to contact Sena Chief Bal Thackeray, executive president Uddhav Thackeray or senior leaders such as Sanjay Raut. After hearing, the division bench of Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice Mridula Bhatkar granted Mr. Dalvi to deposit Rs. 5.88 Lakh on Monday.
“This is not a question of money, but is a question of what signal should go to the people. This breaking of property, burning (of) buses and trains must be banned,” Justice Desai said.
The bench cited 2009 Supreme Court judgment that said the damage caused to private or public properties by political parties should be recovered from the parties alone. The bench said political parties had full right to sit in dharna and to protest but couldn’t damage any property in the course of time.
In January 2009, over 500 workers had staged a dharna outside Hotel Sahar Intercontinental, close to the airport, to demand the reinstatement of 21 sacked employees. The group had vandalised the hotel when the management refused to give in to the demand.
