Bombay HC
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday refused an urgent hearing of two petitions challenging the Maharashtra government’s decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities last month.
A division bench of Justices Prasanna Varale and Kishore Sant said that nothing will be done with any “electrifying speed” by the government and posted the matter for hearing on August 23.
“There is no urgency. There are so many holidays this month. You (petitioners) expect the government to work? Even on working days, they (government) don’t work,” Justice Varale said.
One of the PILs was filed last week by Aurangabad residents Mohammed Mushtaq Ahmed, Annasaheb Khandare and Rajesh More challenging the renaming of Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The second PIL was filed on Monday by 17 residents of Osmanabad against the state’s decision to rename it Dharashiv.
Both the petitions termed the government’s decision as “politically motivated” and argued that such a name change would lead to “religious and communal hatred”.
The Maharashtra government on July 17 had given its approval to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively. While the erstwhile Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had changed the name of Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar, the newly formed Eknath Shinde government added ‘Chhatrapati’ as a prefix to the name.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader and Aurangabad Lok Sabha MP Imtiaz Jaleel on Sunday also urged the new government to revoke the proposal to rename Aurangabad approved by the two-member cabinet meeting. A delegation led by the local MP asked Shinde, who was on a day-long tour of Aurangabad, to establish a new city named “Sambhaji Nagar”. Earlier also Jaleel had severely criticised the Udhav Thackeray government for the move, insisting that changing the name would put a burden of around Rs 1000 crore on the government.
According to Hindustan Times, the petition opposing the renaming of Osmanabad said that in 1998 the then Maharashtra government had unsuccessfully tried to change the name to Dharashiv. The plea against the renaming of Aurangabad said the Shinde government took this decision without considering public sentiments and disregarding provisions of the Constitution.