In a relief for Rutuja Latke, widow of MLA Ramesh Latke, the Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to accept her resignation and issue a Letter of Acceptance by 11 am on Friday in order to allow her to contest by-elections for the Andheri East constituency.
A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh also criticised the BMC for “not using its discretionary power arbitrarily” in accepting her resignations and waiving off the mandatory 30 days notice period.
The HC was hearing a petition by Ms Latke, 45, who was employed as a clerk with BMC since 2006. She approached the HC after the BMC failed to accept her resignation. The last day of filing of nomination is October 14, Friday.
This paves way for Latke to contest on behalf of the “Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray” party for the upcoming Andheri East Assembly bypoll. The seat fell vacant after her husband’s death in May this year.
The BMC informed the court that her resignation was “defective” since it was not as per the prescribed rules.
On September 2, Ms Latke had written a letter to the BMC that she wishes to contest the by-polls and urged that 30- days notice periods be waived of for her. She submitted her resignation on October 3 after the Election a commission declared the election for the constituency.
Her counsel Vishwajeet Sawant contended that technically her resignation is deemed accepted by the civic body since “a tax invoice” was raised asking her to pay basic salary of Rs 67,000. A receipt issued by the BMC had a remark “Notice pay by employee in municipal treasury”.
Anil Sakhare, counsel for the BMC, opposed the plea stating that there has to be a notice period of 1 month. He also said mere payment of one month's notice pay will not entitle her to resignation but her resignation comes into effect after the acceptance of resignation is communicated to her.
He also said that they have received a complaint against Ms Latke on October 12 alleging corruption, bribery and liasioning work. “The (BMC) commissioner has to look into this before deciding on the resignation,” said Sakhare.
To this the judges questioned as to why so much importance was being given to the resignation of a clerk. “A clerk wants to resign. Why is this case given so much importance?” asked Justice Jamdar.
Sawant said “the complaint is a manufactured document, an evidence of mala fide and perversity… The BMC act shows it has taken a partisan stand contrary to the regulations”.
The court said that it was not just a question whether Ms Latke has a right to contest the election, but was about the civic body’s conduct in using or not using its discretion to waive of notice period in this case.
“The BMC has discretion to waive notice period which it can use or not use. Non-use of discretion in this case is arbitrary,” said justice Jamdar.
He added: “If a clerk wants to resign. just say yes or no. Don’t burden us with these matters.” The bench remarked that they had several other matters to deal with.
The HC has kept the matter for hearing on October 20.
