India News | HC Extends Tenure of KMC Board of Administrators Till Aug 10

Kolkata, Jul 20 (PTI) The Calcutta High Court on Monday extended till August 10 an interim order allowing a board of administrators, headed by West Bengal Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim, to act as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's (KMC) caretaker body.

Noting that the term of the previous interim order passed on May 12 expires on Monday, a division bench comprising justices Sanjib Banerjee and Aniruddha Roy ordered its extension till August 10.

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The bench directed that the matter will be taken up for hearing again on July 28.

The West Bengal government on May 6 appointed a 14- member board of administrators with Hakim, who was the mayor at that time, as chairman to run the KMC.

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The board of administrators was formed following the postponement of the civic elections in the state amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The KMC election was last held on May 8, 2015 and a five-year term of the office of the councillors was going to expire on May 7, 2020.

The appointment of Hakim, also the municipal affairs minister, as the chairman of the board of administrators was challenged in the high court and a single judge bench had directed that the board would function for four weeks.

Challenging that order, petitioner Sharad Kumar Singh had moved a division bench of the high court.

The division bench comprising Justices I P Mukerji and T Ghosh extended the term of the caretaker board till July 20, while upholding the single bench order of May 7.

The single judge bench of Justice Subrata Talukdar had in an interim order allowed the board of administrators, to act as KMC's caretaker board for four weeks.

Justice Talukdar had directed that in order to ensure that the functions of the KMC were carried out smoothly during the extraordinary situation arising out of the coronavirus breakout, the caretaker board would look after its day-to-day operations for a month.

The writ petition challenged a notification by the state government to appoint Hakim as the chairperson of the board claiming that as per the Constitution, no elected member can continue in office for more than the stipulated period of five years and as such, his appointment was illegal.

The petition submitted that the West Bengal government had on May 6 illegally appointed the members of the outgoing mayor-in-council and mayor of the KMC as the members and chairperson of the board of administrators of the KMC respectively.

Seeking quashing of the notification, the petitioner also claimed that there was no provision for appointment of administrator in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act. PTI

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)