The petition, filed through Advocate Amit Bhowmick, would come up for hearing before Justice N J Pandya and Justice S S Parkar on August 2 next. Notices have already been served upon the respondents.

Meanwhile, a bunch of Public Interest Litigations (PIL) challenging Bhatia's transfer from the post of Pune Municipal Commissioner to State Archives, has been filed before the bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabrahwal which would hear them in regular course next week.

While a PIL moved by lawyer J S Jadhav alleged that the transfer of Bhatia was ``malafide'' act on part of Chief Minister Narayan Rane, the other filed by Pune residents led by N G Paranjpe questioned powers of councillors to pass a resolution urging for recall of Bhatia or his removal.

Yet another PIL has been filed by social activist Avinash Dharmadhikari who alleged that Bhatia's transfer was malafide action of the State Government.The PILs have alleged that Bhatia was transferred only to safeguard the interest of corporators.

Kumar takes over
Anoop Kumar took over as the new additional district collector on Thursday. He is an Indian Administrative Services officer of the 1990 batch.

Earlier, Kumar served with Yashada where he was an associate professor. He also headed the People's representative from Rural areas training programme. PMF rail roko n An emergency meeting of the Pune Malayalee Federation (PMF) on Thursday resolved to launch a massive agitation against railways to protest against the proposed Pune-Ernakulam train.

The central committee members of the PMF condemned the attitude of the Railway authorities, and decided to go on a morcha to the railway station on July 29, which will be followed by satyagrahas and rail roko agitations.