Reacting to the Bombay high court's observations on the Thackerays, former IPS officer Julio Rebeiro told Governance Now that the rule of law must be upheld by the government. When it wasn't done, it amounted to bad governance and forced people to approach the court.

He said: "This application was filed almost a year back. After that the court has been conducting the case on its own. Now the government has to file an affidavit and answer in the court. If they had answered ordinary citizens we didnt have to go to court.

"The rule of law has to be upheld. If laws are not upheld and not implemented we have poor governance. It is the duty of the government to implement the laws. The problem is the government does not do so, so what do we do? The laws are  good, but are not implement and for that reason we have problems in our country."

The court had asked the Maharashtra government on Wednesday as to whether it found any evidence of involvement of top leaders of Shiv Sena, MNS and Congress in incidents of political vandalism in the state in recent past.

"Have you prosecuted Bal Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray? Have you prosecuted Raj Thackeray? Narayan Rane?," asked the division bench of acting Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice B R Gawai.

The bench asked the additional chief secretary of home ministry to file an affidavit in this regard within two weeks.

The court's direction came during hearing on a PIL based on letter written by former IPS officer Julio Rebeiro.