Pawar withdraws transfer plea in Munde's suit on MCA elections

Union Agriculture Minister and recently-elected Mumbai Cricket Association President Sharad Pawar today withdrew his plea in the Bombay High Court seeking transfer of suit filed against him by senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde from one civil court to another.
When the matter came up for hearing on March 19, Justice Rajesh Ketkar asked Pawar's counsel to withdraw the transfer application as the court was inclined to dismiss it.
Pawar's counsel Abhay Khandeparkar sought time to seek instructions and the matter was kept for hearing today when the court was informed that Pawar wanted to withdraw the transfer plea.
Accordingly, the court allowed him to withdraw the application.

Munde, who had thrown his hat in the ring for MCA president's post, had challenged the rejection of his nomination in the election by filing a suit in a civil court.
Pawar's transfer application had said that the suit was based upon the interpretation of rules of MCA and the judge had dealt "exhaustively" with them at an earlier stage, but the main hearing, too, would depend on interpretation of same rules, so "it is desirable that the suit be assigned to any other court for final disposal."

Munde's counsel, Vivekananda Gupta, opposed the plea saying the transfer application was not maintainable and termed it as "forum-hunting".

Pawar had earlier moved a civil court seeking transfer of the case to another court. However, he withdrew his plea in civil court with a liberty to move the high court.
Accordingly, he approached a high court bench, which allowed him to withdraw the transfer application once again.
The court, on November 26 last year, had temporarily restrained Pawar from functioning as MCA chief, but the high court had overturned the ruling.