Andheri (East) bypoll: Rutuja Latke moves HC, seeks acceptance of resignation by BMC

The plea was mentioned before a division bench of Justice Nitin M Jamdar and Justice Sharmila U Deshmukh on Wednesday. The bench asked the petitioner to make a copy of the petition available to all parties and posted the hearing to Thursday. Rutuja, however, has not mentioned in her plea which political party she wants to file a nomination for.

The Andheri (East) Assembly seat fell vacant after Sena MLA Ramesh Latke, the late husband of Rutuja, succumbed to a heart attack in May this year.

Rutuja sought a direction from the court to the BMC to immediately issue a letter of acceptance or an appropriate letter evidencing her resignation. In the interim, she sought that the court declare that the petitioner has duly resigned from the service of the respondent BMC. Pending hearing of the plea, Rutuja also sought that she be allowed to fill her nomination form for contesting the Assembly bypoll.

The plea filed through senior advocate Vishwajeet Sawant said the conduct of BMC was “illegal and malafide” and its delay in accepting her resignation is deliberate to prevent her from contesting the bypoll and the BMC was acting in a “discriminatory” manner.

Rutuja said that while she intended to contest a bypoll from Andheri (East), as per Rule 6 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Service (Conduct) Regulations, 1989, an employee of the BMC is prohibited from contesting the same. Therefore, she addressed a letter on September 2 to the BMC requesting to permit her to contest the polls by relaxing the prohibition till such time the election results are declared. However, the joint municipal commissioner (Zone 3, K-West ward) rejected the request on September 22 and the same was communicated to the petitioner on September 29.

As per her plea, after the Election Commission announced the schedule for the by-election on October 3, Rutuja, on the same day, addressed a resignation letter to the BMC and resigned as its employee from the end of office working hours on October 3. The petitioner also requested the JMC (Zone 3) to accept her resignation by relaxing the one-month notice period as contemplated under Rule 28 of 1989 Regulations. She also made a request to waive the recovery of notice pay on merits to enable her to contest the bypoll.

Thereafter, the JMC (Zone 3) forwarded the same to JMC (General Administration), who sought the no-dues/recovery certificates from all previous departments where the petitioner had worked, along with a certificate stating that no inquiry was initiated against her. After obtaining the documents, the resignation letter was sent back to the JMC (General Administration).

The plea further said on October 10, after verifying compliance with all requisitions raised by it, the civic body raised a tax invoice/ challan on the petitioner towards payment of notice pay equivalent to one month’s pay of Rs 67,590. The petitioner deposited the said amount with the BMC and the same was confirmed by the authorities concerned.

After completing all formalities, a proposal for giving acceptance to the petitioner’s resignation was sent to the JMC (General Administration) and the chief public officer of BMC. Rujuta submitted that in 2012, the civic body had permitted one of their employees Hemangi Worlikar to resign before one month after acceptance of notice pay to contest the municipal election.

The plea said that “in spite of following up with the authorities on October 10 and 11, the acceptance letter was not issued by the authorities” and they “ignored and neglected” the issue for “reasons best known to them”.

Rujuta added that there are no dues recoverable from her by the BMC on any account and she was never subjected to any inquiry or disciplinary proceedings at any point of time. Being aggrieved by the BMC’s conduct in withholding the acceptance of her resignation, she approached the high court seeking urgent relief.