BJP, Shiv Sena move Supreme Court against fine for shutdown

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena approached the Supreme Court challenging a Bombay High Court order imposing a fine of Rs.2 million on each of them for forcing a shutdown in Mumbai in July 2003.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam, which heard the case Monday, issued notices to the Maharashtra government and former cabinet secretary B.

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G. Deshmukh, on whose joint petition the high court had imposed the cost on the two political parties.

Other petitioners issued notices include former police chief Julio Ribeiro and advertising guru Alyque Padamsee.

The apex court issued the notice and listed the plea of the two political parties for final hearing only after they deposited a fine with the Maharashtra government as per the apex court's earlier order.

In their petition to the apex court, the two parties contended that they had called for the shutdown to express the popular resentment against a series of terror bombings in the metropolis and its suburbs in a span of seven to eight months from December 2002.

They said the shutdown was called on July 30, 2003, to protest the bombing of a state transport bus in Ghatkopar, in which four people were killed and 48 injured.

The two parties told the apex court that Deshmukh and the others subsequently moved the high court claiming and seeking damages worth Rs.500 million on behalf of the Mumbai residents.

Acting on their pleas, the high court ordered the two parties to pay Rs.2 million each to a fund set up as 'the 30th July 2003 Bandh Loss Compensation Fund'.