The Supreme Court today dismissed the appeals filed against the decision of the Maharashtra State authorities to rename city and revenue divisions of Aurangabad and Osmanabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.
A bench comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhatti upheld the Bombay High Court order in this regard and said that the High Court’s decision was a well reasoned one. It further said that different persons will have different points of view on such matters and the Court cannot examine the same in exercise of its powers of judicial review.
The court remarked that for people living in an area, there will always be agreement and disagreement over the name of the place, and questioned whether courts should solve it by judicial review? Maintaining that the Bombay High Court order is a reasoned order, the bench questioned why it should be faulted.
The Supreme Court also said the state had broadly followed the procedure laid down under the law before changing the names of the two cities. Earlier in May, the Bombay High Court had in May dismissed petitions challenging the renaming of the cities. Notably, the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government under Uddhav Thackeray had decided to rename both Aurangabad and Osmanabad in its cabinet meeting of June 29, 2021.
Aurangabad city and revenue division were renamed as ‘Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’ while Osmanabad was renamed as Dharashiv. Later, the new government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on July 16, 2022 re-affirmed the decision of the MVA government. Consecutively, a clutch of petitions came to be filed before the High Court by individuals including the residents of the respective districts.
The state government claimed that the change in the name of Osmanabad to Dharashiv neither led to any religious or communal hatred nor did it cause any rift between religious groups. The High Court also rejected the petitions leading to the appeal before the top court.
Appearing for petitioners, Advocate SB Talekar said that the procedure prescribed under the relevant rules was not followed. He said that there was no draft notification here inviting objections and suggestions. Therefore, procedure under Maharashtra Land Revenue Code was not adhered to, adding that there was no alteration of territorial boundaries.
However, the Court examined the same and said that the procedure was broadly followed. The bench also remarked that they are finding that they have broadly followed procedure that is not unreasonable.
Furthermore, the bench clarified that there will always be people who say it should be A, others B or C, mentioning that decision has to be taken by the State. It added that all contentions have been dealt with by the High Court and reasonably. It also said that the case was not comparable to that of Allahabad’s name change which is pending before court and was pointed out by Talekar in his arguments.