No impediment in appointment of MLCs: Maharashtra govt to HC

On Tuesday, 15 October, the Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court that there was no impediment in the appointment of seven MLCs for the 12 vacant posts in the state legislative council.

Advocate general Birendra Saraf told a division bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar that there was no stay or injunction from the court or any assurance given by the government that the appointment would not be made.

This was after an advocate appearing for a former municipal corporator and Shiv Sena (UBT) functionary, Sunil Modi, told the bench that the appointment of the seven MLCs was being done even as an order was reserved on his plea challenging the withdrawal of a list of 12 MLC nominees sent to the governor in 2020 by the then-MVA government.

Modi's advocate Harshad Shrikandhe told the bench that the petitioner only wanted to bring to the HC's notice the development of the appointment of seven MLCs and nothing else.

The bench queried if the seven nominated members included persons from among the 12 nominated in the withdrawn list.

Saraf replied in the negative and said, "There is no stay or injunction granted on the appointment and no assurance also given that the appointment would not be made."

The HC, on October 7, concluded hearing in Modi's PIL and reserved the judgement.

Modi had challenged the decision of the Eknath Shinde-led government to withdraw the recommendations made by the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government for the 12 nominated seats.

After the government changed in 2022 and Eknath Shinde took over as the chief minister, the new cabinet wrote to the governor that they were withdrawing the pending list of 12 names submitted by the earlier government.

On 5 September 2022, the governor accepted the same and the list was returned to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO).

Out of the seven MLC seats, the ruling coalition of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has got three, and the Shiv Sena (Shinde-led) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP, Ajit Pawar faction) have got two each.

The newly nominated members from the BJP are its state women's wing chief Chitra Wagh, state general secretary Vikrant Patil and spiritual leader of Banjara community Dharmaguru Babusingh Maharaj Rathod.

The NCP has nominated former MLA Pankaj Bhujbal and Idris Naikwadi, a minority face from western Maharashtra.

The Shiv Sena has nominated former MLC Manisha Kayande and former Lok Sabha member Hemant Patil.