HC says BJP leader's plea against KMC board to be treated as writ petition

The Calcutta High Court on

Friday refused to entertain a petition challenging the appointment of a board of administrators to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) as a PIL and directed that the matter will be taken up as a regular writ petition.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice T B N Radhakrishnan and Justice Arijit Banerjee directed that the petition by BJP leader Pratap Banerjee will be heard by a single bench, which is already hearing another writ petition challenging the KMC notification that appointed the board of administrators with TMC's Firhad Hakim at the helm.

The notification said that the board will carry on with the affairs of Kolkata Municipal Corporation till its first meeting is held after election, which could not be conducted owing to the COVID-19 pandemic despite its term having come to an end.

 

The single bench had in an interim order directed that the board of administrators would continue to function for four weeks.

On an appeal against it, a division bench had modified the order of the single bench and directed that the board would continue to function till July 20 and sent the matter back to the single bench presided by Justice Subrata Talukdar.