A plea has been filed in Calcutta High Court challenging the appointment.
The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has, in an “illegal, arbitrary, capricious and malafide” manner appointed Firad Hakim, the former Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Minister for Municipal Corporations in the Bengal government, as the administrator of KMC, a petition filed in the Calcutta High Court challenging the appointment said.
The petitioner, Sharad Kumar Singh, a resident of Aurobindo Sarani in Kolkata in his petition before the Calcutta High Court said, “The Minister-in-charge of the Department of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs has in fact appointed himself as chairperson of the Board of Administrators which is a malafide exercise of the power for oblique process.”
Further, the petitioner in his petition claims that the Bengal government has “misconceived” and “misused” Section 634 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act and has illegally constituted and appointed the Board of Administrators for KMC.
Section 634 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act states that if any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the state government may, as the occasion may require, by order do or cause to be done anything which may be necessary for removing the difficulty.
The West Bengal government has “illegally extended the term of the existing board after five years by just replacing the name of the board from Mayor in Council to Board of Administrators”, the Petition said.
The term for the Kolkata Municipal corporation ended on 6 May this year after completing a term for five years and elections to the municipalities which was expected to be held in the state last month had to be shelved due to the coronavirus pandemic and it was at this time that the West Bengal government in a notification on 6 May had constituted this Board of Administrators.
The Board of Administrators for KMC constituted by the West Bengal government has 14 members, including, Mayor Firad Hakim, Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh and 12 other councillors from the Trinamool Congress.
Critics and legal experts have said that this has been done to hijack the functioning of the KMC and not let the KMC slip out from the hands of the Trinamool Congress. Former Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and senior lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who appeared for the petitioner, told The Sunday Guardian, “The is an arbitrary move by the West Bengal government. The Bengal government wants to keep the Municipal Corporation under its control. It is an illegal act and in violation of the Constitution. How can a Minister himself become the convenor of the Municipal Corporation and appoint himself the Chairman of the Board? The Bengal government will soon do this for all the municipalities in the state.” Another senior lawyer from West Bengal, Vikas Singh, told this newspaper, “This is against the ethos of the Constitution of India. An elected representative cannot have a term more than five years. The Bengal government has selected a public representative at the highest post of the municipal body, which in all way under the Constitution is illegal. In this case when the term of the corporation was over, the Commissioner of the Corporation should have taken over and not a minister or a politician.”
Governor of West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankhar has also criticised the Bengal government for this move. Taking to social media, the Governor said, “Order in my name and I am not aware. No consultation or informattion. Where are we heading? Under Article 167, it is duty of Chief Minister to furnish information to Governor. The order has huge ramifications.” A delegation of the BJP, along with state party president Dilip Ghosh, met the Governor apprising him of the “illegal” appointment by the Mamata Banerjee government.
The Calcutta High Court has also heard the matter and has said that the matter will be taken up for detailed hearing after four weeks given the extraordinary situation of an ongoing pandemic.
The court has further ordered the Board of Administrators to function in a “caretaker” capacity for four weeks. The petitioner challenging this order has moved the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court and the matter is likely to be heard next week.