A challenge to an administrative service appointment should be brought before the Maharashtra State or Central Administrative Tribunal, the court questioned the petitioner about how it could become involved in this matter.
The petitioner was directed by the Bombay High Court on Thursday to provide justification for the maintainability of the claim made in opposition to the appointment of the current Municipal Commissioner of the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC).
According to the argument made by public activist Selvaraj Shanmugam, current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who was the Minister of the Urban Development Department in 2021, appointed Dilip Dhole to the position of Commissioner of the MBMC after removing the previous Commissioner, who belonged to the IAS cadre.
The complaint was that the current commissioner was an officer in the IAS cadre.
A challenge to an administrative service appointment should be brought before the Maharashtra State or Central Administrative Tribunal, Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Madhav Jamdar’s bench questioned the petitioner on how the High Court could become involved in this matter.
On October 10, the Court set the subject to Petitioner for further hearing:
These allegations were presented in the plea:
- The Dhole in question is not an IAS;
- The position was held by an officer from the IAS cadre, and he was dismissed before his tenure was over.
The current commissioner, who was a Deputy Commissioner in the Goods and Services Tax Department, was dispatched to the State Ministry of Urban Development Department and thereafter transferred to MBMC as an Additional Municipal Commissioner on August 2020.
He was selected to serve as Municipal Commissioner in March 2021.
The petitioner alleged that letters were sent to Shinde in his capacity as a cabinet minister and that Dhole’s appointment was a political ploy to meet the needs of the current administration.
According to the petitioner, despite the fact that the position of Commissioner was not empty, Shinde had ordered the appointment of Dhole, as evidenced by documents obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) and media articles.
