File photo of Bombay High Court.
Credit: iStock Photo
Mumbai: In what comes as an embarrassment to the Eknath Shinde-led Maha Yuti government, the Bombay High Court has instated the University of Mumbai to go ahead with the senate election as planned on September 24.
On Friday night, the Maharashtra government issued a circular postponing the election till further notice.
This is for the second time in 13 months that the senate elections were postponed.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) has slammed the state government for refusing to hold the 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 is set for September 26.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Worli MLA 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.