Why Bombay High Court quoted Shakespeare in its judgement
Why Bombay High Court quoted Shakespeare in its judgement
Quoting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet’s “”What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,” the Bombay High Court said on Wednesday, dismissing a bunch of petitions challenging the Maharashtra government’s decision to rename the district and cities of Aurangabad and Osmanabad to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.
The bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor in its judgment quoted Juliet as making a profound observation about the nature of names and that a name does not make something that it is; even if Rose had a different name other than “rose”, the essence of the flower would not change, it would still be the same. However, the petitioners disagree with what Shakespeare says through Juliet in his famous tragedy, observing the bench.
The petition against the renaming had termed the government’s decision as “politically motivated”. The Maharashtra government had opposed the pleas, claiming the two places were renamed due to their history and not for any political reasons.
In a 76-page judgement, the bench said that the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code permits the State government to abolish any revenue area and to name/rename and alter the name of the area.
It added that it has no hesitation to conclude that the government had followed the statutory provisions before taking the decision to rename the districts and cities.
The court said it was of the opinion that the issue of alteration of the name of a revenue area or even a city or town is not justiciable as the courts lack the requisite tools to adjudicate such an issue.
“As to by what name a particular object or place is to be known cannot be judicially reviewed unless the name so proposed is atrocious,” the bench said.
It was way back in 1995 that the renaming of Aurangabad city was proposed, and the plan was aborted. Later, Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and subsequently, in 2022, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde approved the names of Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv.
On July 16, 2022, a Government Resolution was passed by the two-member cabinet for changing names and then forwarded to the central government.
In February 2023, the Union Home Ministry gave a no objection letter to changing the names of the cities and districts and thereafter, a gazette notification was issued by the state government changing the names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad.
The bench refused to get into emotive arguments by the petitioners, pointing to the historical, social and cultural background and perspective of both these two places. The bench said that there can always be two or more perspectives from historical, sociological and cultural point of view in these matters and it is difficult for the Court to arrive at any legal conclusion in the absence of any judicially manageable standards available to the Court to adjudicate such aspects.
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