PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) to ensure all steps are taken for a meeting for consideration for Motion of No Confidence against Chairperson of Sanquelim Municipal Council (SMC) Yeshwant Madkar is positively held on April 16.
The High Court’s order comes in response to a petition filed by six out of 13 SMC councillors led by Dharmesh Saglani seeking directions to the DMA to fix an early date for considering the Motion of No Confidence which the petitioners have moved against the Chairperson of the SMC. The Bench of Justice M S Jawalkar and M S Sonak observed that DMA Director has acted quite unreasonably in fixing the meeting almost six weeks after receipt of the requisition.
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“The removal of an elected office bearer on the loss of confidence is an essential feature of democracy. Such a feature cannot be defeated by the Director by simply delaying the holding of meeting to even consider such a Motion,” the Court said.
As such, the DMA has been directed to take all the steps to see that the meeting for consideration of Motion of No Confidence against the SMC Chairperson is positively held on April 16. If for this purpose the Director has to issue notices to the councillors, he should ensure that the same are issued at the earliest so that there are no complaints on this issue.
The Bench further said that the Deputy Collector — deputed to preside over this meeting — should also ensure that such a meeting is held on April 16.
“The notice for holding the meeting on April 30 is consequently modified to that extent,” it said.
