India News | HC Stays Criminal Proceedings Against Mumbai Civic Chief over Orders Passed During Pandemic

Mumbai, Nov 18 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on Friday stayed the criminal proceedings initiated against Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Chahal for alleged discriminatory orders passed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A single bench of Justice Amit Borkar noted that prima facie no offence was made out as alleged in the complaint filed against the civic chief in December 2021.

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The complainant, Ambar Koiri, had alleged that the orders passed for imposing restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic discriminated between vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens.

A magistrate's court had earlier this month issued process (summons) against Chahal.

The process was also issued against former chief secretary Sitaram Kunte and former additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani under relevant provisions of the Disaster Management Act.

Chahal challenged this before the high court.

Justice Borkar, while staying the proceeding against Chahal, said that even if the allegations made in the complaint are taken at face value, they do not constitute any offence.

"If the order of issuance of process (by the magistrate) is perused, no material is showed against the petitioner (Chahal) that he knowingly disobeyed any order of law or caused injury to any person," the court said.

Koiri in the complaint sought action against the trio for the commission of offences of willful disregard and defiance of the guidelines issued by the National Authority under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, with ulterior motive to give wrongful benefit to the vaccine companies.

The complainant further claimed that when vaccinated persons were also at risk of getting infected and spreading coronavirus, then there was no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.

Koiri in his plea stated that the accused (Kunte, Chahal and Kakani) had conspired with each other and violated the fundamental rights of many citizens, including him.

(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)