State seeks to club all petitions in HC challenging appointment of administrator to gram panchayats

Expressing anxiety over the July 23 order of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) which stayed the operation of a government resolution (GR) to appoint

Expressing anxiety over the July 23 order of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) which stayed the operation of a government resolution (GR) to appoint administrators to the 14,000 gram panchayats, the state requested the chief justice of the Bombay HC to club all petitions challenging the GR and an ordinance, filed at the three seats of the HC at Mumbai, Nagpur, and Aurangabad.

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The GR is based on an ordinance promulgated by the state on June 25, which empowered it to appoint administrators to the various gram panchayats as elections could not be held due to the Covid situation. The GR empowered zilla parishad chief executive officers (CEOs) to carry out the appointments.

The chief justice said he would look into the request to club all the petitions but refused to restrain coordinate courts from hearing petitions or passing orders.

On Tuesday, the division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Sarang Kotwal, while hearing one of five petitions filed at the principal seat, was informed by advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni that 11 petitions were filed at the Aurangabad bench and four at the Nagpur bench, dealing with similar challenges. Kumbhakoni further informed the court that after the benches at Mumbai and Aurangabad refused to pass any interim orders, the petitioners moved the Nagpur bench and managed to get an interim stay on the operation of the GR.

Kumbhakoni then submitted that though the state was not alleging that the petitioners were resorting to forum shopping, it would be better if all the petitions were clubbed together and heard at only one of the seats. He also requested the chief justice to restrain the coordinate benches from hearing the petitions and passing orders till the praecipe for clubbing all petitions was decided.

After hearing the submissions and request, the chief justice stated that he could not dictate what cases could be heard at the other seats. He said that while he had the discretion in administrative matters, he had no say in the judicial side as he was only a judge like the other judges. He, however, assured Kumbhakoni that he would look into the request to club all the petitions, and posted the matter for hearing next week.