HC refuses to interfere with MU senate elections

The Bombay High Court allowed Mumbai University to proceed with senate elections, rejecting a plea to stay results amid concerns over voter registration.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday refused to entertain an intervention application seeking to stay the Mumbai University senate elections for the graduates’ constituency and allowed the University to proceed with declaration of results on Friday, as scheduled.

HT Image

The intervention application was filed by Maharashtra Students Union. However, the division bench headed by justice AS Chandurkar, refused to entertain the plea.

The court had on Saturday stayed the directive issued by the higher and technical education department to postpone Mumbai University (MU) senate elections for graduates’ constituency and allowed the University to conduct the elections on September 24, two days after the scheduled date of voting and counting of votes on September 27.

The order came on a petition filed by three contesting candidates – Milind Satam, Shashikant Zore and Pradeep Sawant, who have already filed their nominations for the senate elections for graduates’ constituency, challenging the September 19 order issued by the higher and technical education department, temporarily staying the senate elections, as well as the order issued on Friday by the MU Registrar to postpone the elections to a future date.

They contended that the state government had with an ulterior motive constituted a one-member committee to inquire into representations of former students of the IIT-Bombay and the Institute of Chemical Technology, regarding meagre registration of voters for these elections.

Claiming that the September 19 order issued by the higher and technical education department was a subterfuge to derail the election process, they contended that the order was contrary to settled legal position that election process should normally be concluded as scheduled.

They also pointed out that earlier when a petition was filed in the high court complaining about irregularities in the voters’ list, the University had put out a statement on October 9, 2023, that the scrutiny of the voters list would be completed in two weeks, following which the election schedule would be declared. However, they said, it took around 10 months more for the University to declare the election program on August 3, 2024, and the voting was scheduled to take place on September 22.

Saturday’s order came after their counsel, advocate Siddharth Mehta pointed out that the senate elections were dragging on for over a year and when the schedule was eventually declared on August 3, the state government and the returning officer stayed the elections just two days before the scheduled voting.

Advocate General Birendra Saraf opposed the petition, contending that a decision was taken to set up a committee after it was noticed that the number of voters for the senate elections had gone down drastically from 62,000 in 2018 to 13,000 now. He said the election was stayed in this backdrop and in any case, the elections are only for graduates’ constituency and the senate is otherwise functioning and therefore the orders should not be interfered with.