Bombay High Court refuses permission to hold Dahi Handi at Bhandup (West)

A division bench of Justices Girish S Kulkarni and Arif S Doctor was hearing a plea by Sandip Jalgaonkar, a former MNS leader who has now joined the Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, which sought to direct BMC’s Assistant Commissioner of S Ward to grant permission to his “Shri Swami Samarth Samajik Pratishthan’ to organise Dahi Handi festival between 10 am to 10 pm on Saturday at Bhandup (West).

Jalgaonkar, through advocate Suresh Sabrad, claimed that he had been organising the festival at the venue for several years and despite availing a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from traffic police and fire department, the BMC had kept his application pending “without justifiable cause”, which is why the plea was raised before the HC.

On the other hand, MNS, through advocate Anand Pai claimed that its local leader too had applied to organise festivities.

However, advocate Kejali Mastakar for submitted that the civic body had received a letter on August 13 from the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Bhandup division, stating that if such a permission is granted to any of the applicant organisations, it is likely to create “serious law and order situation,” therefore, the BMC rejected the permission to both the organisers.

The bench observed that it “cannot question the wisdom of the Police Department in taking this decision which is in the larger public interest of maintaining law and order, during the festivities” and that the same was “paramount”. Dismissing the plea, the HC clarified that it has not examined the legality of the August 13 communication as the same was not challenged.

The court said that the dismissal “would not prevent the parties from reconsidering and reconciling their respective positions so that the festival can be celebrated”, and in such an event, the authorities can take an appropriate decision as per law.

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