New Delhi, Dec. 1: The BJP and the Shiv Sena told the Supreme Court today that they had paid Rs 20 lakh each as compensation for the financial loss caused to Mumbai citizens during a 2003 bandh.

“The Rs 20 lakh amounts have been paid,” the counsel for the two parties said.

On July 23, 2004, Bombay High Court had asked the parties to pay the compensation after declaring the bandh “unconstitutional” and violative of the fundamental rights of the citizens of Mumbai. The shutdown had been called days after the Ghatkopar blast that killed four persons in July 2003.

The BJP and the Sena had challenged the high court ruling in the Supreme Court. But former Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal said the money must be deposited before the court could adjudicate on the issue of the legality of slapping such a compensation.

In their appeal before the apex court, the two parties had contested the locus standi of several prominent citizens such as B.G. Deshmukh, Alyque Padamsee, Julio Rebiero and Gerson da Cunha who had filed the PIL against them. “The said respondents are busy bodies and do not seem to have any genuine concern for the alleged cause,” the parties’ petition said.

The BJP and the Sena also said there was no factual data to establish that citizens had suffered because of the bandh and that the PIL was based on newspaper reports.

“It (the PIL) only assumes violence without verifying the truthfulness of the newspaper reports,” the petition alleged. The bandh had been called to express the “general feeling of the people against the bomb blast”, the parties claimed, adding that essential services were kept out of its ambit.