Plea in HC Against Firhad Hakim's Appointment as Kolkata Mayor

Kolkata, Nov 28 (PTI) A CPI(M) councillor Wednesday filed a petition before the Calcutta High Court challenging the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (Second Amendment) Bill 2018, which was passed in the West Bengal Assembly recently.

The amended act, to which the governor has given his assent, enables a person, who is not an elected councillor, to be made the mayor of a corporation. The person would have to be elected within six months to continue in the post.

The amendment facilitated the taking over of Firhad Hakim, who is not a councillor, as mayor of KMC. Hakim is a minister in the West Bengal cabinet.

Claiming that a stranger cannot be elected mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the assembly does not have the authority to change laws governing the election of a mayor to a civic body, CPI(M) councillor Bilkis Begum filed the writ petition, her lawyer Shamim Ahmed said.

The councillor prayed for the nullification of the amendments, claiming that the amended act is unconstitutional,

The petition will be moved before an appropriate bench of the high court on Friday, Ahmed said.

The Trinamool Congress, which has a huge majority in the KMC, has elected Firhad Hakim as its leader in the municipal body, following the resignation of former mayor Sovan Chatterjee.

Chatterjee had been asked to resign from the post of mayor by Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after he tendered his resignation as a minister.

(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)