Mumbai: Three runners-up of 2017 BMC polls set to be corporators

In the 227-seat BMC, the Shiv Sena’s strength will henceforth increase to 93, BJP’s strength will reduce by two to 83 and Congress tally will remain unchanged at 30.

A senior official from the municipal secretary department said that applications of all three new corporators have been moved to the Small Causes court (this court has the power to nominate or disqualify corporators). The court order will then be sent to the BMC’s general body meeting, where the Mayor will formally declare their names as corporators. The whole process will take at least six months.

On April 24, a bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice K M Joseph upheld the order of the Bombay HC and dismissed the petitions of Kesharben Patel, Murji Patel and Rajpat Yadav

Speaking to The Indian Express, Salagre said he was happy that they have won a long battle lasting over two years. “I’m happy that finally justice has prevailed. Not only the caste certificate, all of Murji Patel’s documents were fake. He forged birth certificate and other documents. There should be strict action against him. After the BMC election results were declared, we had filed a complaint with the Caste Scrutiny Committee. Now, once the Small Causes court verifies our claims we will be declared as corporators,” Salagre said. He was corporator for one term till 2012.

Sandeep Naik wants a police case registered against Kehsarben Patel for forgery. “There should be strict action against Murji and Kesharben as they made all fake documents. At every level their documents have been rejected. I had worked very hard in my constituency but these people forged documents to be eligible. They should be barred from contesting any elections in future. An example should be set,” Naik said.

Under Section 33 (2) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, if any corporator is disqualified then the candidate with the second highest votes can be appointed as corporator in his place without elections.

Hundare too expressed happiness over the disqualification of the corporators. “We are lucky that we got a decision in our favour. There have been cases in the past when people have struggled to get justice. In the last term, I remember several cases when corporators had submitted fake caste certificates but due to the slow progress of scrutiny persons with fake certificate enjoyed the full five-year term,” Hundare told The Indian Express.

Soon after the 2017 BMC elections, objections had been raised against the caste claims of five corporators. After the election results were declared on February 23 that year, the elected corporators had a year to obtain a caste validity certificate. Their caste claims were turned down by the vigilance cell of the Mumbai CSC in August 2017.

The five had subsequently moved the Bombay HC where two corporators got a reprieve. The Bombay HC, however, upheld the CSC order disqualifying them.

A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Bharati Dangre of the Bombay HC held in case of the three corporators that “the claim of the petitioner is not substantiated by sufficient evidence being adduced before the Scrutiny Committee and since they are unable to prove the claim (of their caste), it came to be rejected. Once the claim is found to be rejected, the consequences of disqualification must fall upon them and the seat stands vacated.”

The three had then decided to move the SC last month but failed to get a reprieve.