Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation : Supreme Court Issues Notice On Pleas Against Bombay HC Verdict Quashing Reduction Of Area

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices on petitions challenging the Bombay High Court judgment which quashed the Maharashtra Government's notification to exclude 18 villages from Kalyan- Dombivili Municipal Corporation(KDMC).

A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India issued notices on the special leave petitions filed by KDMC and the State Government against the judgment passed by a division bench of the High Court on December 4.

Senior Advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Municipal Commissioner of KDMC, submitted that the High Court had taken a "pedantic and technical" view. He requested the bench for an early returnable date as the municipal elections are due in April 2021.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Maharashtra Government, urged the bench to stay the HC order. However, the CJI-led bench declined to consider the stay application today and said that it will be considered after the return of notice.

In the High Court, a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice GS Kulkarni declared the notification passed by the State Government on June 24, 2020, to reduce KDMC limits as "null and void" as the same was passed without "effective and meaningful consultation" with the municipal corporation. The State Government had proposed to form the 18 villages excluded from KDMC into a separate council named Kalyan Suburban Municipal Council.

The State Government defended the notification by saying that it was issued on the recommendation of the Municipal Commissioner.

The High Court held that Municipal Commissioner cannot be equated with the Corporation as per the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949

The HC judgment authored by Justice Kulkarni said :

"In our opinion, the intent and purpose of the legislature providing for 'consultation with the Corporation' cannot be rendered an empty formality, it is required to be meaningful to achieve the desired legislative intent. The intended purpose is to have an effective opinion from the Municipal Corporation on the proposed action of either inclusion or exclusion of areas in relation to the concerned Municipal Corporation. Consultation in the present context did not mean any approval or concurrence, but the views of the Corporation were required to be ascertained by the State Government in reaching its conclusion on the matter one way or the other. It is certainly a prior consultation as the provision uses the words "after consultation with the Corporation". This requirement of the provision certainly could not have been rendered nugatory by having an opinion of the "Municipal Commissioner" who is not the Corporation within the meaning of 1949 Act but an officer of the Municipal Corporation".

The SLP for Municipal Commissioner of KDMC was filed through Advocates Chirag J. Shah, Utsav Trivedi, Abhinay Sharma, Srishti Kumar,Himanshu Sachdeva and Samrat Shinde, AoR