In a major relief to the Maharashtra government, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday dismissed a batch of petitions challenging notifications issued by the government officially renaming Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities and revenue areas, including districts, sub-divisions, talukas and villages, as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv.
A division bench of Chief Justice (CJ) Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Arif S held that impugned notifications issued by the state government “do not suffer from any illegality or any other legal vice,” thus no interference by the court is warranted and petitions “being bereft of any merit are dismissed”.
The bench, at the beginning of its 76-page judgment, quoted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” It said this sentiment resonated throughout the hearing of the pleas.
CJ Upadhyaya, for the bench, said Shakespeare made a profound observation on the nature of names, that a name does not change anything, and that calling a rose something different would not change the essence of the flower. However, the petitioners disagreed with this.
The bench noted that once objections and suggestions were considered to the draft notification to change the names of cities, it did not have any reason to disbelieve that due consideration was not given before issuing a final notification.
It held that the government had followed provisions of Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966, while renaming revenue areas, therefore, the petitioner’s arguments cannot be accepted in absence of any procedural flaw.
The bench added that if an authority is empowered under the statutory provision to name a revenue area, there was no reason to deny such power to the same authority for altering or changing its name. “As to by what name a particular object is to be known cannot be judicially reviewed unless the name so proposed is atrocious,” it said.
On the night of September 15, 2023, the two districts and revenue areas were officially renamed. The Maharashtra government issued a notification through the revenue department, stating that it had considered suggestions and objections for the renaming of districts and had decided to change the names of sub-divisions, villages, taluka and district levels.
On February 24, 2023, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a no-objection letter to change the names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities, and thereafter, the state government issued a gazette notification to rename them.
The petitioners, through senior advocates Yusuf Muchhala, Anil Anturkar, and advocates S S Kazi, Satish B Talekar, Madhavi Ayyappan, claimed that respondent government authorities only created/made a show or invited objections and suggestions. In reality, the respondents did not want to consider the objections and suggestions from the people at large and wanted to foist their decision on the people, they said.
The pleas added that the Constitution had given the nation a secular fabric, and respondents’ conduct in renaming the cities, districts, divisions, subdivisions, talukas, and villages having Muslim names is arbitrary and uncalled for.
However, advocate General Birendra Saraf, representing the state government, had submitted that renaming Osmanabad as Dharashiv was celebrated by the “majority people from the city”, adding that the move neither undermined the spirit of secularism nor caused any communal rift.
In June 2022, during the last cabinet meeting of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray approved the long-pending demand to rename Aurangabad Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad city Dharashiv.
After coming to power, the Eknath Shinde-led government had said the Thackeray-led dispensation’s decision to rename these places was illegal as it was taken after the governor had asked the coalition government to prove its majority in the state Assembly. The new government then approved the renaming of the two cities.
During the MVA government’s last cabinet meeting, Aurangabad was renamed Sambhajinagar only, but the Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government added the prefix ‘Chhatrapati’.
The lawyers argued that the government did not call for objections before issuing the notification regarding the renaming of cities, which was against the procedure. (Express Archives) 
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