Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The Bombay High Court, on Wednesday, upheld the state government’s notifications regarding the official renaming of Aurangabad city and the revenue areas to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad city and revenue areas to Dharashiv respectively.
Today (on Wednesday) the bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Upadhyay and Justice Arif S Doctor has rejected all the petitions challenging the renamings stating that the Maharashtra Government’s decision is not illegal.
As reported earlier, many petitions challenging the renaming decision of the state government were filed in the Bombay High Court. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) led state government under the leadership of the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, in the last cabinet meeting held in June 2022 had decided to rename. However, citing the process of renaming as illegal, the new Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s cabinet stayed the decision. Later on, after a month, the renaming of Aurangabad was okayed with the addition of the prefix Chhatrapati to the name Sambhajinagar. The cabinet approved the name Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The decision of the Shinde-Fadnavis government was taken in July 2022 and it was approved by the Central Government as well in February 2023.
Renaming of the city 25 years ago
The city was renamed during the Shiv Sena-BJP-led state government in 1997. The notification was issued after completing the due process. However, the state’s notification was challenged in the court. Later on, the matter went to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, when there was a change in power in the state in 1999, the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh withdrew the notification regarding renaming. This is the reason the renaming decision that was taken 25 years ago was delayed for official declaration.
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21 combined petitions
There were 10 petitions filed opposing the renaming of Aurangabad city and three petitions opposing the renaming of Aurangabad district, while six petitions were filed opposing the renaming of Osmanabad city and two petitions were filed opposing the renaming of Osmanabad district. A total of 21 petitions were filed opposing the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities and the other parts of the districts respectively, stated Adv Saeed Shaikh, one of the lawyers representing the petitions.