Calcutta HC refuses to stay mayoral election

The Calcutta High Court Friday refused to stay the scheduled election of West Bengal minister Firhad Hakim as the mayor of the city.

Hakim has been chosen as the mayor designate of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) by councillors of the ruling Trinamool Congress following Sovan Chatterjee's resignation from the post on a direction by party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

An opposition CPI(M) councillor had moved the high court, challenging Hakim's scheduled election on the ground that he was not an elected councillor from any of the wards of the KMC.

Refusing to pass any interim stay, Justice Debangshu Basak directed the state and the KMC to file affidavits in opposition to the petition of CPI(M) councillor Bilkis Begum.

The petitioner was directed to file her affidavit in reply within another week.

The matter would be taken up for further hearing on December 17, the court directed.

The petitioner challenged the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018, which was passed by 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 a mayor of the KMC. 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 the mayor of KMC. Hakim is a minister in the West Bengal cabinet.

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

Appearing for the petitioner, senior counsel Bikash Bhattacharya submitted that a mayor of the city is elected from among the elected representatives.

The Constitution does not provide for a non-elected person to head a local or municipal body, Bhattacharya, himself a former mayor of the city from the CPI(M), submitted.

He claimed that the Assembly did not have the authority to change the laws governing the election of a mayor to a civic body.

Appearing for the state, Advocate General Kishore Dutta submitted that since the Constitution did not expressly prohibit the election of a non-member of the municipal body to the post of mayor, it could not be termed unconstitutional.

While the AG claimed that "a prohibition cannot be assumed", Bhattacharya submitted that "it cannot be done unless there is an enabling provision."