Justice Abhay Oka expressed shock at the Maharashtra government's application filed today by its pleader Abhinandan Vaigyani. Bombay High Court had ordered a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to be given by the Maharashtra government to whistleblower Shrikant Karve. However, the government said that there was no prayer for money by the whistleblower himself, so the court's order for payment should be "reviewed and modified". The court said, "This is shocking. This person has helped unearth a scam, a problem within your system and has thus, helped you save on a lot of money. But the state feels paying him is burdensome." With this the court rejected the application. Vaigyani told the court that Karve has filed number of petitions and during earlier orders petitioner had been paid the cost by state government. "Ultimately, this is public money when payment is made through the exchequer and when cost has been paid earlier there is no need to pay the cost again," said Vaigyani. The application filed by Vaigyani stated that in December the transport minister had held a meeting to decide about this issue. The ministry which is headed by Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote decided to "bring it to the notice of the court that it may not be appropriate to pay the said cost from government exchequer in absence of a specific prayer by the petitioner in this regard." It was on Nov 17 last year when the court had ordered the Maharashtra government to pay Rs 1 lakh to Karve who had opened the pandora box through his RTI filings about how fitness of vehicles are tested in Maharashtra. Karve has been seeking effective implementation of the Motor Vehicles Act and through RTIs has shown how fitness certificates for vehicles are blatantly given even without testing which leads to number of accidents on the road. Karve has time and again approached court to highlight how courts orders are being flouted and for this he travelled great distances and regularly filed RTI, spending all the money from his own pocket. With this in mind, the court had ordered a compensation to be handed over to Karve.