In yet another significant ruling, the Bombay High Court (HC) dismissed petitions against the ordinance issued by CM Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government to reduce the number of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) wards from 236 to 227.
A division bench of Justice SS Shukre and Justice MW Chandwani said, "We do not find any substance in both the petitions. The petitions are dismissed."
The petition was filed by two former corporator Raju Pednekar and Sameer Desai.
He sought quashing the government’s decision stating that it was against the Constitution. Pending the hearing of his plea, he sought a stay on the decision. Further he prayed that the State Election Commission (SEC) conduct the BMC elections based on delimitation conducted earlier, as per the Supreme Court’s orders on May 4 and July 20.
His plea had contended that in February 2022, the HC had dismissed pleas against the delimitation initiated by the MVA government increasing the BMC wards to 236. It was after this, that the SEC published a final notification in the official gazette.
Stating that the law as it stood prior to November 30, 2021 (with 227 seats) was valid and constitutional, the government has sought that Pednekar’s plea be dismissed which has been filed with “malafide” intentions and due to “political influence”.
The State Election Commission’s (SEC) Deputy Commissioner Avinash Sanas had filed an affidavit stating that when the seats were increased by the government from 227 to 236, the SEC had to scrap the work already done by it with regard to the pre-election process and restart it.
The 2001 census showed Mumbai's population as 1,19,78,450 which increased to 1,24,42,373 in 2011 which is an increase of only 3.87%. Therefore, in 2021, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government issued an ordinance and amended section 5(1)(a) of the BMC Act to increase the number of elected councilors in the BMC from 227 to 236.
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