Show ‘extreme self-restraint’ while speaking in public: HC

Court upholds disqualification of an ‘abusive’ councillor

According to the complaint filed against the councillor by a civic official, he had obstructed the eviction work carried out against some illegal encroachers. He was accused of abusing the Chief Officer, who headed the eviction task

Observing that elected representatives must show ‘extreme self-restraint’ in using ‘filthy’ language in public, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court recently upheld the disqualification of an ‘abusive’ councillor. The bench considered the fact that Sanjay Parve, the councillor of Jalgaon-Jamod Municipal Council, not only abused an on-duty public servant but also encouraged the local public to obstruct an ‘official’ work.

A single-judge bench of Justice Sunil Shukre said, “In a situation where a senior public servant along with his team, has already swung into action against illegal encroachments, an elected representative, has to exhibit extreme self-restraint and avoid speaking anything and to say the least, hold himself back from visiting the spot where the action is already underway.”

“Because, his mere presence there is mistaken by the encroachers, who may be his present or prospective voters, for an opposition to the eviction against them, and thereby encouraging them to resist the action through unlawful means. In this case, the elected councillor was expected to show much more maturity, which he did not,” Justice Shukre said.

The bench was seized with an application filed by Sanjay Parve (40), who was disqualified by the Collector, Buldhana for his ‘misconduct.’ The orders of the Collector were also confirmed by the Urban Development Minister, which was then challenged by Parve before Justice Shukre. According to the complaint filed against Parve by a civic official, he had obstructed the eviction work carried out against some illegal encroachers. He was accused of abusing the Chief Officer, who headed the eviction task.

However, Parve claimed that he did not indulge in any obstructionist and abusive attitude and instead extended his “helping hand” to the Chief Officer to remove the encroachments.

The bench dismissed Parve’s explanation that he was present at the spot only to ‘support’ the civic officials. The bench accordingly held if Parve ‘genuinely’ wanted to support the civic officials, then he would have first taken their advice and acted accordingly instead of directly visiting the spot. The bench also noted the presence of a ‘journalist’ along with Parve, when he visited the spot.

“One does not understand if Parve’s intentions were clear as to why he chose to keep along with him one journalist. Thus considering the overall material on record and Parve’s lack of self-restraint inspite of being an elected representative would all reasonably show that the excuse given by him was lame and he wanted to play to the gallery and support the encroachers rather than the public cause,” Justice Shukre observed.

The court while dismissing his plea along with imposing costs, considered the fact that the Chief Officer, had filed a complaint with the local police against Parve under charges of criminal intimidation and intentional insult.