Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Tuesday dismissed a petition challenging an order of the then Goa Governor dated September 9, 2017 seeking the disqualification of Margao MLA Digambar Kamat.
On April 28, 2017, petitioner Shirish Kamat had instituted a petition before the then Governor seeking disqualification of the former CM on the basis of he being a partner in Bharat Construction Engineers & Builders and getting works from Goa PWD.
The ex-Governor had requested the Election Commission of India (ECI) to furnish its opinion on the allegations. The ECI opined that Kamat had not incurred any disqualification based on which the then Governor on September 9, 2017 dismissed the petitioner’s petition.
The petitioner then filed a review plea in 2019 before the ex-Governor. The ECI, in response to the review petition, said it was not maintainable and opined that there was no merit in the review petition. Based on this opinion the Governor dismissed the review petition in 2020.
A petition was then filed before the High Court of Bombay at Goa. Based on hearings and arguments, the Division Bench of Justice M S Sonak and Justice R N Ladda observed that though judicial review is available, the same is quite different and distinct from sitting in appeal over the decision of Governor, who, in terms of Section 192(2) has acted according to the opinion of ECI.
“In the exercise of such limited powers of judicial review, we do not think that any case has been made out to interfere with the impugned orders. This is not a case of ‘no evidence’ or any perversity in reaching the findings of fact. At this stage, we must also clarify that since this was a matter concerning the disqualification of an elected representative, we have evaluated the material placed on record by the petitioner and on such evaluation, we are quite satisfied that no case for interference is made out with the impugned orders even if we were to exercise appellate jurisdiction, that in any case is not available to us in this matter. This is because the petitioner’s case fails both on facts as well as on law,” it said.
The bench ordered dismissing the plea stating there are no merits in the petition.