HC stays postponement of senate elections, allows Univ to hold them on Sept 24 | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Saturday stayed the higher and technical education department’s directive to postpone Mumbai University (MU) senate elections for the Graduates’ Constituency and allowed the university to conduct the elections on September 24, two days after the earlier scheduled date of voting. The counting of votes will take place on September 27.

The division bench of Justice A S Chandurkar and Justice Rajesh Patil, however, allowed the education department to proceed with setting up a one-member inquiry committee to look into complaints of non-registration of adequate voters for the senate elections.

The court was hearing a petition filed by three contesting candidates—Milind Satam, Shashikant Zore and Pradeep Sawant—challenging the September 19 order of the higher and technical education department temporarily staying the senate elections, and the consequential order issued on Friday by the MU registrar, who is also the returning officer for the elections, to postpone the elections to a future date.

The petitioners contended that the state government had an ulterior motive in constituting a one-member committee to inquire into representations of former students of IIT-Bombay and the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), regarding the meagre registration of voters for these elections. They claimed that the September 19 order issued by the education department was a subterfuge to derail the election process.

They also pointed out that earlier when a petition was filed in the high court complaining about irregularities in the voters list, the university had made a statement on October 9, 2023, that the scrutiny of the list would be completed in two weeks and the election schedule would be declared immediately thereafter. However, they said, it took around ten months more for the university to declare the election programme on August 3, 2024.

The order came after the petitioners’ counsel, Siddharth Mehta, pointed out that the senate elections were being dragged for over a year over some or the other reason, and when the schedule was eventually declared on August 3, the state government and the returning officer were not entitled to stay the elections at the last minute.

In support of his contention, advocate Mehta also cited Supreme Court judgments, holding that an election process should not be interfered with ordinarily and pointed out that the election process could be interfered with in case of a natural calamity or a serious law-and-order situation, which was not the situation now and therefore the orders could not be legally sustained.

Advocate-general Birendra Saraf opposed the petition, contending that a decision was taken to set up a committee after it was noticed that the number of voters for the senate elections had gone down drastically, from 62,000 in 2018 to 13,000 now. He said the election was stayed against this backdrop, and in any case the elections were only for the Graduates’ Constituency and the senate was otherwise functioning and therefore the orders should not be interfered with.

The bench accepted the argument advanced by Mehta and stayed the orders postponing the elections indefinitely. It refused to accept the reasoning behind the department order after noticing that the voters list was published on July 31 this year, and this was known to the department but nothing was done about it then.

The court also noted that the representation from IIT–B and ICT graduates was received during the election process—on September 2—much after the list of eligible candidates was declared. Even after that, it said, no immediate steps were taken and the department chose to intervene at a belated stage.

After the order was passed, the university again approached the court and, on its request, the court allowed the election program to be deferred by two days.

Addressing a press conference on the issue at his residence on Saturday, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray said that the senate polls were postponed because the BJP and Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde did not want any sort of defeat before the assembly polls. “We will start an inquiry against MU vice-chancellor Ravindra Kulkarni for postponing the senate polls and also punish him,” he said.

Taking a dig at the ruling parties Aaditya said that the BJP government was scared of polls. “The CM should attach the prefix ‘Darpok’ (Coward) before his name,” he said. “In 2010, there was a poll and we won eight out of 10 seats. In 2018, we won all 10 seats. Mumbai University is an autonomous body and I can’t understand why they are stalling the polls. Can our 10 senate candidates run a government or anybody? But the government does not want any polls before the assembly polls.”

Aaditya also pointed out that the VC had full authority to conduct elections. “If he cannot hold polls, then he does not have any authority to run the university,” he said. “This is doing damage to MU’s reputation.”

Shiv Sena (UBT leader) Varun Sardesai said the court order was “a victory for 13,500 voters”. “We will fight the polls under the leadership of Aaditya Thackeray and will win all 10 seats,” he declared.