Bombay High Court gives relief to three Thane corporators

In a relief to three municipal corporators of Mumbra in neighbouring Thane, the Bombay high court on Friday stayed the show cause notices issued to them by the state government asking them why they should not be disqualified after builder Suraj Parmar in his suicide note had blamed them for his extreme step.

Hanuman Jagdale, Najib Mulla and Vikrant Chavan had moved the high court challenging the show cause notices issued to them. The trio, through their lawyer Sarthak Diwan, had contended that they could not be disqualified just because some criminal case is pending against them. According to them, they were being targeted because of political rivalry and a municipal corporator could only be disqualified if he was convicted in a criminal case.

They also pointed out that recently the court had granted relief to another independent municipal corporator Sudhakar Chavan in an identical matter.

The state government had issued notices to Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) ordering stringent action against all the four applicants. However, when the TMC’s standing committee failed to reach a decision on whether to suspend or disqualify the accused, the state then decided to disqualify them and issued them show cause notices on May 17 asking them to respond by June 2. The applicants have challenged this notice in HC.

On October 7, 2015, Parmar, a prominent builder and MCHI (Thane) president, shot himself in the head at one of his under-construction sites in Kasarvadavli in Thane. His suicide note alleged that a nexus of corporators and officials were harassing him.