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The Bombay High Court on Monday has rejected a petition by BJP councillors challenging the Maharashtra government ordinance to increase the ward strength of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from 227 to 236.

A division bench of Justice A A Sayed and Justice Abhay Ahuja heard the plea filed by the BJP Councillors Abhijit Samant and Rajeshree Shirwadkar.

The present plea challenged the State Urban development department notification for increasing the number of seats in the BMC from 227 to 236 after the proposal that was cleared by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.

The plea termed the ordinance as “illegal and arbitrary” and contended that it was issued ahead of the BMC elections scheduled for next year to benefit a certain political party.

According to report by Indian Express, the senior advocate Veerendra Tulzapurkar representing the petitioner stated that, “the ordinance is based on the 2011 Census and as these figures are more than 10 years old, amending the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act on their basis is illegal.”

The petitioner contended that the number of councillors was increased without any “quantifiable data or latest census population data available.”

To this the State government said that the same was proportional to an increase in the population.

Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni for the government argued that the plea was filed on frivolous grounds and should be dismissed with heavy costs for wasting court’s time.

He also stated that, the grounds raised in the plea “unjust, arbitrary, mala fide and politically motivated” and said the ordinance was promulgated after following due legislative process.

The Advocate General also stated that it was not right on that the petitioners argued that since the Supreme Court had turned down the ordinance granting 27 per cent reservation to OBC candidates in civic body elections due to lack of empirical data and therefore the November 30 ordinance should be set aside.

He said that while the empirical data was required for the reservation concerned, the increase of nine seats, which was based on the 2011 census, did not need the same and the contention was baseless.

The State Election Commission (SEC) on the other hand stated that it has a schedule in place to conduct the elections within the time mandated and any further deviation from it will only jeopardize and delay the election process and thereby the plea should be dismissed.

Senior advocate Anil Sakhare for the BMC agreed with the submissions made by the State and contented that the increase in the number of seats was intended to better manage the issues of large population in the city and as the petitioners were not directly aggrieved by the decision, hence the plea should be dismissed.

 

[Case Title – Abhijit Ganpat Samant & Anr v. State of Maharashtra]