In a reliving news for the Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, the Bombay High Court (HC) today, October 13, asked the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC) to accept Rutuja Latke's resignation.
A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh said the use or non-use of discretion by the BMC Commissioner in taking a decision on the resignation in this case was "arbitrary".
The court also directed the competent authority of the BMC to accept the resignation and issue appropriate letter by 11 am on Friday, October 14. It later asked what was its difficulty in deciding on the resignation submitted by Rutuja Latke, the candidate of Thackeray-led Sena for the upcoming Andheri East Assembly bypoll.
“If an employee wants to resign and contest elections, what is the difficulty? The petitioner is a clerk. Why is the Municipal Commissioner not using his discretion and taking a decision? the bench asked.”
The court also exclaimed that it is just an employer-employee dispute before us. This is not even a matter that should have come to court. The Commissioner should have done it by now.
Earlier in the day, Latke's counsel Vishwajeet Sawant had told the court that she is a clerk and has no pending dues or enquiries.
For those unversed, Rutuja, widow of MLA Ramesh Latke, wants to contest from Andheri East assembly constituency for the by-elections. Separately, Rutuja Latke has maintained that she will contest the bypoll on the Thackeray faction’s ‘mashaal’ symbol.
Meanwhile, the Thackeray faction also alleged political pressure on the Mumbai civic body to delay the resignation of Latke as its employee to scuttle her candidature for the November 3 by-elections. On the other hand, the BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal denied any political pressure.
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