Parking lot allotment: Bombay HC asks Lodha developers to file reply by December 19

The Bombay high court on Monday granted time to Lodha Developers to file its reply to a public interest litigation which has alleged corruption in allotment of public parking lots by former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

The petition, filed by activist Praveen Wategaonkar, alleged that someone close to Chavan in the erstwhile Congress-NCP government was charging exorbitant amounts for clearing proposals for allotment of public parking lots. It alleged that the respondent builder was the largest beneficiary in the parking lot scam.

Wategaonkar had also alleged that the proposals of Runwal Developers, Wadhwa Residency and Lodha Developers for constructing public parking lots at Mulund, Ghatkopar and Altamount Road, respectively, had been cleared within three to five months. However, other proposals of lesser-known builders took between eight and 14 months for clearance although they had been received around the same time.

Wategaonkar obtained information under the Right to Information Act which revealed that the Maharashtra government cleared three proposals for parking lots on June 20, 2012, a day before the Mantralaya was gutted in fire.