File photo of Bombay High Court.
Credit: iStock Photo
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has instructed University of Mumbai to go ahead with the senate election as was planned on Sunday.
On Friday night, Maharashtra government issued a circular postponing the election till further notice.
This is for the second time in 13 months that the senate elections had been postponed.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) slammed the state government for refusing to hold senate polls. On Saturday, a special hearing was convened on a petition by election candidates Milind Satam, Shashikant Zore, and Pradeep Sawant, challenging the postponement.
A division bench of Justices A S Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil stayed the government's circular, which had delayed the election indefinitely.
The court declared that the halted election would proceed as planned, with a detailed order to follow.
The next hearing will take place on September 26.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, who also heads the Yuva Sena, said, “The cancellation of the Mumbai University Senate election only shows how scared the BJP and Shinde are of the Yuva Sena.”
“This is the farce for the world to see- what they have done to democracy now. They fear elections, and they talk of One Nation, One Poll,” he said.
“The University of Mumbai is an autonomous institution; how can the government intervene? When MVA returns to power, our government will investigate the role of the vice-chancellor as he has stalled elections two times,” he said.