Raju S/o Sripad Pednekar vs State of Maharashtra

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2023 Supreme(Bom) 246

SUNIL B. SHUKRE, M. W. CHANDWANI
Raju S/o Sripad Pednekar – Appellant
Versus
State of Maharashtra – Respondent

Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Petitioners: Aspi Chinoy, Devdatt Palodkar, Swati Chandan, Sunny Jain, Nilesh Pawaskar, Sonali Kunekar, Umesh Kunekar, Bhavika Shinde.
For the Respondents: Birendra Saraf, Chirag Shah, Jyoti Chavan, Vaibhav Charalwar, Birendra Saraf, Abhay Patki, Sachindra Shetye, Sarika Shetye, Akshay Pansare, Vikrant Dere, S.K. Mishra, Sagar Patil, Pooja Yadav, Sunil K. Sonawane, Pradeep Rajagopal, Drishti Shah, Rekha Rajagopal.

JUDGMENT :

SUNIL B. SHUKRE, J.

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally, by consent of the learned counsel for the parties.

2. In both these petitions, Ordinance No. VII of 2022 dated 4-8-2022, which was later on made into an Act, i.e. Maharashtra Act No. XLIII of 2022, has been challenged on the ground that the same is ultra-vires the Constitution of India.

3. The main ground of challenge to the constitutionality of the impugned Ordinance and the impugned Act is that they are manifestly arbitrary and have been promulgated and enacted only to negate the decision of this Court by which Ordinance No. XIII of 2021, amending Section 5 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 (‘MMC Act’ for short) so as to increase the number of directly elected Corporators in Mumbai Municipal Corporation (‘MMC’ for short) from 227 to 236 was upheld by the judgment of this Court delivered on 17-1-2022 in Writ Petition No. 3824 of 2021, which judgment attained finality when the Special Leave to Appeal filed before the Supreme Court questioning the said judgment was dismissed on 18-2-2022.

4. For effectively deciding the controversy involved in both these petitions, it is necessary for us to