Mumbai civic body’s standing committee members challenge 674-item agenda for October 21 meeting

A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed before the Bombay high court (HC) on Monday, challenging the agenda of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC)standing

A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed before the Bombay high court (HC) on Monday, challenging the agenda of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC)standing committee meeting scheduled for October 21. The PIL has been filed by advocate Makarand Narvekar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of the standing committee, and Prabhakar Shinde, group leader of the BJP in the BMC.

HT Image

The PIL challenges the 674 items placed for approval by way of video conferencing in a single meeting day. It contended that it is not possible to deliberate and pass so many resolutions in a single day, and it seemed like the corporation intended to pass all resolutions without any discussion. A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni allowed the PIL to be heard on October 20 for urgent reliefs.

According to the PIL filed by advocate Jeet Gandhi on behalf of Narvekar and Shinde, on October 16, BMC issued the agenda of the standing committee meeting to be held on October 21. As per the agenda, the meeting would be held for the first time since March 31. Due to the pandemic situation, it would take place through video conferencing. A total of 674 items had been placed for discussion and approval by members of the committee for the meeting.

The PIL further stated that in the history of the BMC, the standing committee has never passed so many resolutions in a single day. According to the petition, the respondents — the BMC along with chairman of the standing committee Yashwant Jadhav, its municipal secretary Sangeeta Shinde, BMC commissioner IS Chahal and the state government — have clubbed several items on the agenda for one meeting, and are expecting to pass them together, without allowing deliberation.

Narvekar and Shinde have contended that the arbitrary decision of the respondents to have 674 items for deliberation on a single day will cause grave harm to citizens of Mumbai, and should not be voted on without any deliberations.

The PIL further stated that the agenda runs into thousands of pages, and it extremely difficult to go through the information in three days. The petitioners stated that there are already 80 pending agenda items of the standing committee meeting dated May 15, 2020, which was scheduled but not held owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. Pointing out that elections for the post of chairman of 27 committees were held physically on October 10, the PIL suggested that the committee meeting also be held physically and that the items on the agenda be reduced so that there can be fruitful discussions on each issue.

Additionally, BJP has alleged an error in the results of the ward committee chairman elections. Bhalchandra Shirsat, BJP corporator and standing committee member, said, “We have also approached the HC, challenging Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar’s decision to name Shiv Sena’s candidate as the winner of the ward committee elections held on Friday by declaring one vote of the BJP as invalid. The matter is not listed yet.”

The BJP had alleged that Pednekar declared Shiv Sena’s Deepmala Badhe as the winner for the chairman post in the ward committee elections for S and T wards by wrongly declaring one vote of contesting BJP corporator Jagruti Patil as invalid.