Manubhai Paragji Vashi v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.

Mr. Nitin Jamdar for Respondent No. 4. SMT. V.K. TAHILRAMANI, JJ. CORAM: B ILAL NAZKI DATE: JUNE 11, 2009 P.C.:- This petition has been filed in public interest with a novel relief that the Government should direct respondents No. 1 to 3 to drop respondent No.4 from the Council of Ministers. During the hearing, however, the petitioner conceded that this relief cannot be granted, and he was prepared to give up the same with an alternate relief that respondents No. 1 to 3 should be directed not to allot any work to respondent No. 4. 2

If this Court has not the power to direct dropping of a minister from the Council of Ministers, it, equally, does not have the power to decide whether he should be entrusted with any business or not. The power to appoint a minister is solely with the Governor under Article 164(1) of the Constitution of India.

The bases for this P.I.L. are certain observations of a Division Bench of this Court in another case, being O.S. Writ Petition No. 580 of 2007 (Subhash R. Acharya v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.) decided on 16th August, 2007. We have gone through the observations. We are told that the judgment in Writ Petition No. 580 of 2007 is the subject- matter of a Petition for Special Leave to Appeal. We do not want to comment on the observations made in the judgment. The observations made against the minister in this judgment would not entitle this Court to allow this P.I.L. It appears to be misconceived, and is dismissed.

On the last occasion when the case was taken up for hearing on 25th March, 2009, the preliminary objection about the maintainability of the petition was raised by the learned Advocate General, and 3 the Court had observed in its order “we will highly appreciate if the petitioner is able to satisfy us in respect of our jurisdiction to grant the relief sought in the P.I.L.” No such assistance is forthcoming. On the other hand, we have been shown a judgment of a Full Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court (Dhronamraju Satyanarayana v. N.T. Rama Rao & Ors.) reported in AIR 1988 Andhra Pradesh 62 to fortify our conclusion that this Court does not have power to grant the relief claimed in the P.I.L. BILAL NAZKI, J. SMT. V.K. TAHILRAMANI, J.