Nagpur, July 03: The Shiv Sena-BJP opposition combine has urged the Mumbai High Court to declare the special session of the Maharashtra Assembly held on May 8 as illegal and enforce directives of the governor regarding equitable distribution of funds for removal of regional backlog. Chief Minister, legislative council chairman, legislative assembly Speaker, state finance and irrigation ministers have been made respondents in a PIL filed yesterday in Nagpur bench of the High Court. The petitioners including leader of opposition in the legislative council Nitin Gadkari, B T Deshmukh MLC, Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Rawte, Davendra Fadanvis (BJP) and Dnyaneshwar Dhane Patil, both MLAs and functionaries of forum for removal of backlog, have charged the state government with violating governor's directive issued on December 15, 2001 and March 12, 2003, under Article 371 (2) of the constitution.

The PIL has questioned the legality of proceedings of special session on May 8 this year and charged the Speaker Arun Gujarathi with placing a truncated version of the recommendation of the legislative council to the appropriation bill before it. The petition has requested the bench to direct the Speaker to convene a special session again to consider recommendation of the upper house.

The special session had been necessitated after the upper house on April 10 had passed a recommendation for provision of Rs 2,751 crore in the financial statement for 2003-04 for irrigation sector of backward regions of the state but by that time the lower house had been prorogued. Bureau Report