Aurangabad, Sept 21:
The newly appointed Shirdi Sansthan management committee should not take any policy decision, approve expenditure, make any appointments or add new members till further order of the court, ordered Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice S G Mehre of the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court. The next hearing on this PIL will be held on September 23.
Following the hearing on the civil application of Uttamrao Rambhaji Shelke, former trustee of the Sansthan, the bench has issued interim orders as above. The new management committee took over from the ad hoc committee without the permission of the high court. Also, the two main objections raised by the civil application are that the new committee appointed by the government was not constituted as per the law. The petitioner sought permission to amend the PIL through a civil application, while assistant public prosecutor S G Karlekar and adv Anil Bajaj sought time to reply to the petitioner's civil application. During today's hearing, adv Pradnya Talekar drew the attention of the bench to paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 of the High Court order dated October 9, 2019. The state government has set up a new management committee on the institute by ordinance dated September 16, 2021. The committee has accepted the charge on September 17, 2021. After the hearing, the bench said that the state government has the power to appoint a management committee. However, the bench had appointed an ad hoc committee in 2019 under special circumstances to guide, supervise and manage the institute.
Court can revoke the committee
When the High Court had appointed an ad hoc committee and empowered it to manage the institute, thus no other committee could remove the establishment committee by order of the high court. The new management committee cannot thus take charge without the order of the court. The high court can withdraw the committee it has set up, the bench said.