“The draw of lots as per Section 20(4) of Maharashtra Municipal
Corporations Act, 2012, gives equal opportunity to all and discretion is
conferred upon the chairman to work out
finer details. The details need to maintain transparency in the
process. In facts before us, that intention is not defeated. In this
situation, we find no substance in challenge warranting interference,” a
division bench comprising Justices Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Prasanna
Varale held.

Petitioners Alka Dalal from Bastarwari prabhag and
Raju Lokhande from Imambada-Rambag prabhag had challenged the elections
held in February for electing eight members on its standing panel. The
new members replaced those elected earlier including the petitioners.

NMC had adopted a lottery system for the first to elect eight members
for retirement by rotation after it was brought under new law. The
petitioners claimed they had earlier raised objection to the lottery
system that had proved grossly prejudicial to women. They sought
quashing the result and continuing Sujata Kombade, Saroj Bahadure,
Harshala Jaiswal, Aslam Khan, Prafulla Gudadhe and Ravindra Dolas as
members of the committee.

The judges observed that as the
standing committee consisted of total 16 members and it was decided that
eight would retire, hence eight chits carried word ‘retire’. “It was
known in advance that the persons lifting those chits would stand
retired. This mode of determining the retiring member has been
prescribed by the legislature as it was first year after coming into
force of Section 20,” they said.

The court stated that in
subsequent years, the standing committee members with longest tenure
would retire. “Thus, this was the only instance when the draw of lots
was required. In this situation, preparation of 16 chits and giving
equal opportunity to each member to draw the same cannot be said to be
either arbitrary or perverse. Unanimous decision requiring male members
to draw the chit first also cannot introduce any arbitrariness and is
not sufficient to vitiate the ‘draw’,” the court ruled while rejecting
the petition.