In a major relief to senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde, a city court on Tuesday temporarily restrained NCP chief Sharad Pawar from functioning as the president of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), but gave the latter one week’s time to appeal against the order.
Hearing a petition filed by Munde challenging the election of Pawar as the MCA chief, Judge MS Sharma passed an interim order, restraining Pawar from functioning as the president of the cricket body, pending a hearing of the BJP leader’s suit challenging the NCP supremo’s election as the MCA president.
“The court has allowed Munde’s application seeking interim relief and restrained Pawar from functioning as MCA president,” Munde’s lawyer Nitin Pradhan said. In its order, the court directed that Munde’s suit be heard on a day-to-day basis so as to facilitate a decision in the case within next three months.In his petition filed before the city court on October 18, Munde had also challenged the rejection of his nomination to contest the biennial MCA’s presidential polls held on October 18.
Munde had challenged the MCA’s decision to disallow him from contesting the cricket body’s presidential polls held on October 18. He had contended that the rejection of his nomination by the election officer S M Gorwadkar was “illegal” and prayed for the re-conduct of the polls.Munde had also urged the court that Pawar, who was declared elected unopposed, ahead of the October 18 polls, should not take charge as theMCA president and even if he assumed the charge, should not be allowed to discharge the functions of the president.
In his petition, Munde had named outgoing MCA president Ravi Savant, joint secretaries Nitin Dalal, P V Shetty, CT Singhvi of Vile Parle club, who had raised the objection, and Gorwadkar as the other respondents to the suit.Munde’s nomination and subsequent appeal to allow him to contest the MCA’s presidential polls had been rejected on October 17, facilitating the election of Pawar as the city cricket body’s chief unopposed.