High Court reverses CM’s order, deals blow to Dy CM

Mumbai: In the first major political blow for Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the Bombay High Court has reversed his July 29 directive instructing the divisional deputy registrar (DDR) of cooperative societies to remove NCP leader Eknath Khadse’s wife Mandakini from the Jalgaon District Milk Cooperative Mahasangh (milk cooperative). Khadse, formerly with the BJP, had switched over to the Sharad Pawar led NCP and has been at loggerheads with Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Maharashtra’s Minister for Medical Education and Research, Sports and Youth, Girish Mahajan ever since.

Justices Mangesh S Patil and Sandeep V Marne of the Aurangabad bench, while admitting a writ petition filed by Mandakini Khadse and four other directors who were removed from the board, also refused to stay the operation of an order allowing the state to appeal against it before the Supreme Court. “The brazenness with which things have happened is mind boggling. Even when the deputy director is vested with the power to appoint an administrative board comprising three members, the state government directed him to appoint 11 members (to the board of the milk cooperative),” the judges observed in their August 30 ruling.

The term of the Mandakini Khadse-led board of directors was set to expire earlier, but--owing to the COVID-19 pandemic--was extended at regular intervals up to September 30, 2022, by the erstwhile MVA government. However, on July 29, 2022, immediately after the Shinde-led government was installed in Maharashtra, the DDR passed an order removing the petitioners from the five board members while appointing 11 new members in their place based on CM Shinde’s directives. Justices Patil and Marne admitted the writ petition challenging the order passed under section 77A of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960 (Act) by the DDR on the directions issued by CM Shinde. More than Shinde, the ruling comes as a setback to his deputy, Fadnavis, who was instrumental in politically downsizing Eknath Khadse within the BJP during his stint as CM (2014-2019) when both were cabinet colleagues in the BJP-led state government.