Mumbai: First, it were the 20 corporators from Kolhapur who faced the heat of a Supreme Court ruling making it mandatory for members to submit their caste validity certificates within six months of their being elected. Now it is the turn of corporators from Latur Municipal Corporation (LMC). Eight corporators from the LMC have been disqualified for not submitting caste validity certificates to the State Election Commission (SEC) within six months of being elected.
The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday upheld the Bombay High Court ruling, which had observed that corporators who had failed to file valid caste certificates within six months of being elected should be disqualified. A senior officer from the Urban Development Development (UDD) said, “More than 10,000 members were elected from the reserved posts for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to municipal corporations, municipal councils, zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats are likely to be pronounced disqualified. There are several cases of elected members not having filed their caste validity certificates before the SEC within the deadline.”
He added the department was working to gather information on such members to disqualify them. Once, this process is complete, the election commission will hold by-elections in these wards. Meanwhile, in the Latur civic body, five corporators from the Congress and three from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been disqualified after the SC ruling.
The Bombay High Court had, in December 2016, ruled that corporators who had failed to file valid caste certificates within six months of being elected should be disqualified. It was hearing a petition against the SEC which had rapped all corporators for failing to submit their certificates to the scrutiny committee on time.