“No Bar On MLC Appointments”: Maharashtra Govt To Bombay HC

The Maharashtra government informed the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that there were no obstacles preventing the appointment of 7 Members of the Legislative Council to fill 12 vacant posts in the state legislative council.

Advocate General Birendra Saraf clarified to a division bench led by Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar that there was no court stay or injunction against the appointments, nor had the government made any assurances to refrain from filling these positions.

This statement came after an advocate representing former municipal corporator and Shiv Sena (UBT) functionary Sunil Modi raised concerns about the ongoing appointment process, even while the court reserved its order on his plea challenging the withdrawal of a list of 12 MLC nominees submitted to the governor by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi government in 2020.

Modi’s advocate, Harshad Shrikandhe, emphasized that the petitioner sought only to inform the court about the recent developments regarding the MLC appointments.

The bench inquired whether the seven new nominees included any individuals from the previously withdrawn list, to which Saraf responded negatively, asserting that no injunction had been granted regarding the appointments.

On October 7, the High Court concluded its hearings on Modi’s public interest litigation (PIL) and reserved judgment. Modi contested the Eknath Shinde-led government’s decision to withdraw the nominations recommended by the former Uddhav Thackeray-led government.

Following the change in government in 2022, Eknath Shinde’s cabinet notified the governor to withdraw the pending list of nominees from the previous administration. The governor accepted this on September 5, 2022, returning the list to the Chief Minister’s Office.

Of the 7 MLC seats, the ruling coalition, primarily the Bharatiya Janata Party, has secured three, while the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party each received two. The newly nominated BJP members include Chitra Wagh, state women’s wing chief, Vikrant Patil, state general secretary, and Dharmaguru Babusingh Maharaj Rathod, a spiritual leader of the Banjara community.

The NCP has nominated former MLA Pankaj Bhujbal and Idris Naikwadi, a representative from the minority community in western Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena’s nominees are former MLC Manisha Kayande and former Lok Sabha member Hemant Patil.

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