Bombay High Court sets aside appointment of BJP's Ganesh Bidkar as Pune Municipal Corporation's Leader of House

The Bombay High Court on Monday set aside the appointment of nominated councillor of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ganesh Bidkar as the Leader of the House in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)..A division bench of Justices AA Sayed and SG Dige held that under provisions of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act only an elected councillor could be appointed to the post and not a nominated one.The order was passed on a petition by elected councillor Ravindra Dhangekar..Dhangekar and Bidkar fought civic ward election in Pune in 2018, with the former winning and being legally elected.Bidkar, on the other hand, was appointed as the house's leader after being nominated as a PMC councillor.As a result, Dhangekar filed a complaint under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations (MMC) Act, arguing that his appointment was illegal..The MMC Act provides for appointment of an "elected" candidate as the leader of the house, mayor or any other constitutional post.It was the contention of Bidkar that the term "elected" under section 19-1A (Appointment of Leader of House) of the enactment includes members that have been nominated as nomination is nothing but election..However, the Court disagreed with this contention. It pointed out that whenever the Act intends to treat both the categories of councillors equally, it simply uses the word "councillor"."The presence of prefixed word ‘elected’ to the word ‘Councillor’ cannot be ignored by an interpretative process. Therefore, the term ‘elected Councillor’ used in Section 19-1A would, in our view, mean only and only a Councillor who is directly elected at the election of the Ward and not a nominated Councillor," the Court noted.."Had the Legislature intended to allow the nominated Councillor to be the Leader of the House, section 19-1A of the said Act would have stated so by simplicitor using the term ‘a Councillor’ instead of using a term ‘an elected Councillor," it further explained..The Court refused to interfere with the legislature's policy that postulates the eligibility to be recognised as the Leader of the House."We cannot by way of interpretative process hold that even a nominated Councillor can be recognized as ‘Leader of the House’ thereby interfere with a Legislative policy which is otherwise," the Court elucidated..The Bench also disapproved the indirect method applied by the nominated members in appointing Bidkar as leader even after he had lost the ward election."A person who was not successful in the Ward elections cannot by an indirect method or backdoor entry become the Leader of the House.....it seems illogical and difficult for us to comprehend that after being defeated by will of the majority at the Ward election by process of ballot, how Respondent can be eligible to be appointed as ‘Leader of the House’ of a Corporation comprising of 175 elected Councillors," the Court said..The Court, therefore, set aside Bidkar's appointment as Leader of the House in Pune Municipal Corporation.On the assurance of the counsel on behalf of Bidkar that he would not discharge functions as Leader of the House in the Corporation, the Court stayed the operation of the order for a period of 2 weeks in order to enable him to file appeal. .[Read order]