No Ganesh Utsav mandal has fundamental right to privately create immersion pond in public park: HC

The mandal and others alleged that the denial of the permission amounted to selective targeting, arguing that the corporation had taken the decision at the instance of BJP leader Balachandra Shirsat, a former corporator who had written to minister Magal Prabhat Lodha against allowing the idol immersion.

The bench said that it was unable to see any merit in the plea, after the BMC’s advocate stated that a pond would be provisioned and made available by the civic body for idol immersion.

“Indeed, we find the approach of the MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) to be entirely salutary. These are after all matters of civic and municipal administration and should not be left to private parties at all,” the court said.

“If the allegation is one of the mala fides, that is independently a ground to reject the petition. But merely by pointing fingers at this or that corporator or minister does not substantiate a case. Nor does it provide a cause of action. We have no hesitation in holding that a corporator or minister, as part of the obligations of such an office to the electorate, is fully entitled to receiving and, if thought fit, acting on a representation made by any person,” the bench said, adding that it “cannot be a ground for interference”.

The court said it “entirely disapproved” the approach of “simply naming or pointing to some politician to suggest that, axiomatically, i.e., because some politician has acted in a certain manner, therefore, and necessarily, an administration action is actuated by malice or mala fides”.

The bench said the petitioners had failed to show that the BMC decision had procedural irregularity or was arbitrary, unreasonable or in violation of some fundamental or other legal right.

The bench said the “contention that because permission was granted in the past, therefore it must be granted for all time to come is one that has only to be stated to be rejected” and denied petitioner’s claim of being “singled out” by the authority.

“Considerations will vary from site to site, locality to locality, park to park and pond to pond. Each case must be considered on its own merits. There is no one-size-fits-all mantra to be adopted. Indeed, even if the municipal corporation was to say that in a particular area no immersion pond could be permitted at all for reasons of civic administration (public health, hygiene, and so forth), we would not have been able to interfere. Private religious sentiments, no matter from what quarter they come, cannot prevail over the much wider concerns of civic governance,” it further said.

The court said the BMC order “strikes the correct balance between a private demand and matters of civic governance”.