Bombay High Court Declines To Interfere With Site Chosen For Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial, Says It Falls Outside Scope Of Judicial Review
The Bombay Excessive Courtroom has dismissed a batch of Public Curiosity Litigations difficult the choice to ascertain the Balasaheb Thackeray Rashtriya Smarak on the website of the Mayor’s Bungalow in Shivaji Park, Dadar. The Courtroom held that the selection of website, formation of the managing belief, and different consequential actions had been nicely throughout the State’s coverage area and adopted due course of.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Sandeep V. Marne delivered its verdict in 4 PILs filed opposing the State Authorities’s choices and statutory amendments enabling the memorial’s development.
The petitioners argued that the change of use of Mayor’s Bungalow has been effected in gross violation of the provisions of the MRTP Act. They contended that the notification dated 22 January 2019 illegally effected zoning of the land from ‘Inexperienced Zone’ to ‘Residential Zone’ with out prior public notification or session.
Rejecting these contentions, the Courtroom held that the selection made by the State Authorities, with the approval of the landowner (MCGM), to arrange the Memorial at Mayor’s Bungalow falls within the realm of coverage, during which the Courtroom could be loath to intrude.
“As soon as the Petitioners don’t dispute {that a} memorial to honour late Balasaheb Thackeray deserves to be arrange, the selection of website made by the State Authorities and MCGM for establishing of the Memorial is one thing which might fall outdoors the scope of judicial evaluation by this Courtroom,” the Courtroom noticed.
The Courtroom remarked that issues of coverage should be left to the Governments. Courts is not going to and mustn’t substitute their very own judgment for the judgment of the manager in such issues, until it’s seen that the choice of the manager infringes a basic proper.
The Courtroom discovered that the method of amending the Improvement Plan and altering land use from Inexperienced Zone to Residential Zone was procedurally legitimate and adopted all necessities below the MRTP Act. It additionally dominated that the modification to the MMC Act enabling a nominal hire lease was inside legislative competence and never manifestly arbitrary.
On the objection to the statutory modification, the courtroom noticed that the petitioners have didn’t plead, a lot much less set up, any manifest arbitrariness in enacting Part 92(dd-1) of the Mumbai Municipal Company Act. On the problem of change of reservation of the plot of land in query, the courtroom noticed “mere change in designation of a plot doesn’t alter the character of Improvement Plan and due to this fact doesn’t quantity to a change within the Improvement Plan”.
On the composition of the Belief, the Courtroom famous that, contemplating the aim of the belief, there isn’t any arbitrariness in together with three out of the 11 members of the Shiv Sena political occasion.
Accordingly, all PILs had been dismissed.
Case Title: Jan Mukti Morcha & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. [PIL (L) No. 81 of 2017, PIL No. 40 of 2019, PIL (L) No. 51 of 2017, PIL No. 9 of 2019]
