Mumbai: Bombay HC on Wednesday rejected a petition filed by Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator and former mayor Vishakha Raut challenging a letter issued by BMC chief Ashwini Bhide to the state asking it to issue a gazette notification to declare her as disqualified for six years following invalidation of her caste certificate by a scrutiny committee last month.HC found “no merit” in her plea and said the civic chief had only sought action based on the invalidation order. It, however, kept all of Raut’s contentions over invalidation open and directed expeditious disposal of an appeal she had filed.Raut’s senior counsel, Surel Shah, argued before a bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale that the BMC chief had no power to issue such a request. Senior counsel Rajendra Pai, representing Shiv Sena’s Priya Sarvankar Gurav, who lost to Raut, said the communication was merely a consequential request to notify her disqualification.Raut won the BMC election from Dadar’s ward 191, reserved for OBC women. She had submitted a Kunbi certificate, which the scrutiny committee invalidated on Aug 20 on the grounds that the officer who issued it did not have the jurisdiction to do so. Bhide wrote to the state on Aug 25. On Aug 31, Raut filed her appeal against the invalidation before the appellate authority, which is pending. Her petition claimed that there is a mandatory 90-day embargo on disqualification pending hearing of her appeal.
