HC dismisses PIL questioning mass rejection of BMC poll nominations

A division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and justice Gautam Ankhad said the court is not entitled to pass any order or issue such a direction, which can obstruct the statutory election process

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the “mass rejection” of nomination forms across the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC’s) electoral wards on “hyper-technical” and non-statutory grounds to “favour the ruling party”.

Mumbai, India – 08 Jan 2026: G/South BMC office has organized a Signature Campaign and Awareness among the people to encourage every person of the society to cast their vote on 15th Jan 2026 for upcoming BMC election, in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Jan 08, 2025. (Photo by Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo)

A division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and justice Gautam Ankhad refused to entertain the plea, saying, “The court is not entitled to pass any order or issue such a direction, which can obstruct the statutory election process.”

The petition, filed by Mumbai-based businessman Mozam Ali Mir, claimed that the returning officers of all 227 electoral wards in the city had rejected several nominations on frivolous grounds, such as the affidavits not being in the prescribed format, defective question-answer sheets, and non-submission of no-objection certificates (NOCs) from the water, tax and police departments. The petition also blamed the district election officer and the municipal commissioner for these “high-handed, arbitrary, and unconstitutional actions”.

Mir alleged that the returning officers had acted “ultra vires” (beyond their powers) by issuing a so-called Requisition List, demanding documents not prescribed in the notification issued by the State Election Commission (SEC) last month. “It is a settled principle of law that executive instructions or local circulars cannot override or supplement statutory orders of the election commission”, stated the petition, filed on January 5.

To underline the scale of rejection, Mir’s counsel, advocate AA Siddique, informed the court on Friday that only 150 of the 739 nomination forms distributed in ward No. 23 were accepted due to “the illegal insistence on non-statutory NOCs and hyper-technical rejections”. Similarly, in ward No. 18, out of 507 distributed forms, only 118 were accepted, he said.

This has deprived a large number of eligible citizens of their statutory right to participate in the upcoming BMC elections, the petition said. Citing data published by election authorities on December 30, Mir claimed that nearly 70%-80% of aspirants who collected nomination forms were unable to file them.

This establishes that the demand for additional NOCs acted as an insurmountable barrier for ordinary citizens, the petition said. “This pattern of mass rejection was orchestrated solely to oblige the ruling party by eliminating general public and local political parties”, it added.

On the other hand, advocate Joel Carlos, appearing for the BMC commissioner, questioned the maintainability of the plea, while submitting that the petitioner is not even a contestant in the upcoming elections. “He has no ground to challenge the corporation’s decision,” Carlos added.

Additionally, advocates Irfan Shaikh and Akshay Pansare, representing the State Election Commission (SEC), stated that Mir has no locus to file such a PIL on behalf of other candidates whose nominations were rejected. They added that the PIL is also not maintainable on the ground that the election procedure is underway in all states, and scrutiny at this stage is not possible.

The high court accepted the BMC’s contentions and dismissed the petition.