BMC defers to Bombay HC after two members file petition, to hold standing committee virtual meeting on Fr – Times of India

MUMBAI: After two civic standing committee members petitioned Bombay high court against civic proposal to hold a virtual meet of the statutory panel at 1pm on Thursday, the BMC, on a request made by the court to find out if it can be rescheduled for Friday instead, agreed to hold it on April16 at noon, via video-conferencing.
Two corporators and Standing Committee members Vinod Mishra and Makarand Narwekar, both from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed an urgent petition to challenge the VC meeting. Their lawyer Jeet Gandhi at a VC hearing before a vacation bench of the HC said, the meeting went against an October 2020 order of HC and also complained that the duo received notice of the online meeting, originally scheduled for a physical hearing, at 10 pm on Wednesday. The short notice left no time to scan documents with regard to the 35 items on the agenda where decisions worth crores of rupees would be passed, said Gandhi.
The HC asked if he was challenging the rule governing notice period or its violation, if any. Gandhi said a 24-hour notice is mandated before the meeting is held. Senior counsel Anil Sakhare said the agenda was circulated on April 9 for the meeting originally scheduled to be conducted physically on April 15 at 2pm and then again on April 12 when the timing was changed to 1pm, it was decided to conduct the meeting via VC only after the latest ‘break the chain’ SOP to contain spread of Covid as marriage hall assembly has also been reduced to 25 guests. Hence, he said, there was no violation of any rules.
The HC bench of Justices S C Gupte and Abhay Ahuja, who questioned the petitioners saying “why can’t voting (on the agenda items) be done online via VC, when courts are conducting hearings online?” also said observed, however, that time has to be given for members to scan documents to be produced during the virtual meet for discussion.
The hearing before the HC was at noon and at 12.30 pm, the bench asked Sakhare to take instruction from the civic chief Iqbal Chahal and Standing committee chairperson on why the meeting could not be rescheduled for Friday.
Sakhare said he spoke to both, and both agreed to hold the meeting on Friday at noon. Gandhi too, agreed and the HC passed an order by consent then, without getting into merit of any allegations raised by the BJP corporators that by changing the schedule the committee was “trying to bulldoze agendas involving crores of public money sans deliberations’’.
The HC directed that the petitioners be “effectively heard’’ during the online meeting, when Gandhi said they ought not to be “muted’’.