BMC commissioner Gagrani admits ‘error’ in calling court staff for civic poll duty, gets HC rebuke

The court had also declined request to allow withdrawal of the impugned communication and had sought personal response by Gagrani along with supporting documents indicating the powers under which he issued the directions to subordinate court staff.

The HC was informed by its registry that Gagrani had directly sent the letter to subordinate court staff without any prior communication or information.

On Monday, the bench questioned BMC commissioner from which provision he drew the powers to summon court staff and said he did not have such powers.

Senior advocate Ravi Kadam for Gagrani said the directives were an “error” and they were formally withdrawn. The court was also informed that a letter from a returning officer to requisition staff from the sheriff’s office had also been withdrawn.

However, a bench of CJ Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam A Ankhad expressed displeasure over Gagrani’s directives and orally remarked, “So now save yourself. You make arrangements from other sources. We will hear (from) you after the elections.”

Kadam further said that after the December 30 HC order, Gagrani had communicated to all concerned officers clarifying that the court staff cannot be requisitioned for poll duty. However, one of the ROs wrote a letter to sheriff’s office requisitioning two staff members for election duty, which is now rectified.

The HC asked the BMC commissioner to explain how such a mistake happened during next hearing after three weeks.

Chief Justice Chandrashekhar-led bench had last week stated in its order that it exercises “complete control and superintendence” over the subordinate courts, including the staff, under Article 235 of the Constitution.

The bench had also referred to past court orders and also June 7, 2023, letter by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to several central departments, state governments and Union Territories (UTs) and state election bodies that “present practice of obtaining the prior approval of the High Court before engaging judicial officers/staff, under exceptional circumstances, for election work to continue”.