Used chartered flights for govt work, not for private trips: Nitin Raut to HC

Congress leader and former energy minister Nitin Raut has told the Bombay high court that the chartered flights he used during the Covid-19 pandemic was not for personal reasons but for official work and that the allegations that state power firms were forced to foot the bills were baseless

Congress leader and former energy minister Nitin Raut has told the Bombay high court that the chartered flights he used during the Covid-19 pandemic was not for personal reasons but for official work and that the allegations that state power firms were forced to foot the bills were baseless. His affidavit called the charges politically motivated and said the claim that he misused his position as ex-officio chairman of MSETCL (Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Co. Ltd.) was uncalled for.

Nitin Raut HT Archives

The court was hearing a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to Raut to pay ₹42 lakh towards the expenses of using the service. It was filed by social activist and lawyer Vishwas Pathak who is also the media head of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The petitioner responded that the claims of Raut were false as the information obtained under the Right to Information Act clearly showed that the trips were for private purposes and Raut had failed to justify the trips he made between June and September 2020.

Raut said he had travelled only to Nagpur and Ratnagiri for carrying out his ministerial duty such as deciding on utilisation of the power plants for producing oxygen, ensuring that the power supply remained undisturbed, and overseeing the restoration of power lines destroyed by cyclone Nisarg.

He further said that he had undergone angioplasty and the doctors had advised him not to travel by road for long distances.

The affidavit further said that the allegations that he had travelled to Delhi and Hyderabad were also false and that the bills were raised by the airlines as the flights had to be arranged from those cities due to their unavailability in Mumbai.

The petitioner claimed as the money shelled out by the companies is public money, the minister should be directed to reimburse the amounts, as he used the chartered flights for his personal use.

Pathak said that the minister had also failed to justify the trips he made after September and as per Raut’s own submission he was taking the flights due to his health issues; so, he should be made to pay for the same.

The overall bill of ₹1.05 crore was unjustified and hence, Raut should be liable to pay part of the expenses incurred by the power companies, he said.

Raut pointed out that the grievances raised in the petition are similar to the complaints lodged by Pathak before the ministry of corporate affairs and the police and hence, the PIL was misconstrued. Raut claimed that the only purpose of the petitioner is to act on behalf of the political party he belongs to and there is no public interest involved. The amounts paid by the power companies were not done under any coercion and the same could be verified with the firms, the affidavit added.