Giving interim relief to Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, the Bombay High Court on Monday set aside a lower court’s order that passed an injunction preventing him from functioning as president of the Mumbai Cricket Association. However, it refused Mr Pawar’s plea to transfer the case to another judge in the lower court.
The trial court will now hear, in an expeditious manner, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde’s petition challenging Mr. Pawar’s election.
Mr. Pawar had appealed to the Bombay High Court recently after the lower court barred him from fulfilling his responsibilities as president of MCA till the matter was heard. The court stayed the order to facilitate Mr. Pawar to appeal to the High Court. The stay was to end on Tuesday.
“Clause one [of the order passed by the lower court] is quashed and set aside,” Justice Anoop Mohta said on Monday after hearing marathon arguments from lawyers of Mr. Munde, Mr. Pawar and MCA. The other clauses related to the expeditious hearing of the matter have been maintained.
The court refused to accede to the plea by Mr. Munde’s lawyer that the present order be stayed for two weeks. “The trial court had granted stay. Having quashed clause one of the order, there is no question of granting stay.”
Mr. Munde had argued before the High Court that the process of election to the post of MCA president was scuttled with mala fide intent to ensure that Mr. Pawar can hold the position.
‘Change judge’
Mr. Pawar's lawyer Rafique Dada told the Court that the views of the lower court judge, who passed the injunction, were very strong. “It would be appropriate [to allow us to plead our matter in front of another judge]. If he has such strong views, the learned judge cannot change his views. We are not dogmatic about it, but we will go to the Principal Judge.”
Mr. Munde’s lawyer Niteen Pradhan however termed the plea unfortunate. “The request for transfer of trial judge is not emanating from law. The submission is unfortunate. This oral submission may not be taken into consideration, it may not be granted.”
The High Court, while passing the order, said at present it did not want to consider the plea of changing the judge. “The learned judge [of the trial court] has passed the order on the basis of available material. The [lower] court will pass the appropriate order if case is made for transferring the matter,” Justice Mohta said.
‘No malice’
The MCA argued before the court on Monday that it had no malice against Mr. Munde. “There was no malice against him as nobody knew that he wanted to submit his candidature for MCA. The plaintiff’s entry was very late. At that juncture, nobody knew that he was to stand for the election. Where is the credence for the substance,” asked V.A. Thorat, who represented the MCA.
The lawyers representing Mr. Pawar and Mr. Munde made arguments about the technical details pertaining to permanent residence and presence or lack of precedence while dealing with such cases.
