Latest News | Keep in Abeyance Election to Puducherry Local Bodies: HC

Chennai, Oct 11 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Puducherry government and the State Election Commission in the Union Territory to keep in abeyance till October 21 all further proceedings in the matter of conduct of election to the Municipalities and Commune Panchayats there.

The impugned orders dated October 6 and 7, announcing the revised schedule for elections on November 2, 7 and 13 are not in consonance with Section 9 (8) and 11 (8) of the Puducherry Municipalities Act and the Puducherry Village and Commune Panchayats Act, as well as the constitutional mandate contained under Article 243-O of the Constitution, a special bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Abdul Quddose said.

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This is the second time the election schedule for the local body elections in Puducherry suffered a setback in the recent days.

In view of the urgency of the matter, the judges sat today, a Dussehra holiday for the High Court, as a special case.

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The bench posted further hearing on three PIL petitions-- from Muthialpet independent MLA J Pregesh Kumar, DMK legislator R Siva and another -- before the first bench, headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee, on October 21. The authorities concerned are to file their counter affidavit by then.

The bench noted that on October 5, the first bench of the High Court had directed the Puducherry government and the SEC to rectify the anomalies in not following the reservation for allotment of wards to Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and women and to issue a fresh notification after rectifying the defects.

Accordingly, the SEC had issued the recent notifications rescheduling the election to the five Municipalities and ten Commune Panchayats in the Union Territory of Puducherry.

"While issuing the impugned notifications, the Puducherry government, without any basis, had withdrawn and/or repealed the notifications issued in the GO dated March 7, 2019 and thereby disentitled the backward classes and scheduled tribes from contesting the local body elections in the reserved wards. It is not clear as to what prompted the government to withdraw the reservations provided in the notifications issued in the March 2019 GO."

"In the impugned notification dated October 6, reference has been made to the order dated October 5 passed by the first bench of this Court. Curiously, in that order, the Election Commission was directed to rectify the anomalies in the notifications providing for reservation to backward classes and scheduled tribe communities. (But) there is nothing in the impugned order to indicate that it was issued after a consultative process with the elected representatives," the bench noted.

In fact, after the impugned orders had been passed, all elected representatives of the Puducherry had given a joint representation on October 9 to conduct the election to the local body only after rectifying the anomalies in the earlier notifications with reference to the reservation of the local body or municipal wards for STs and BCs, based on the existing population, which indicates that there is no consultative process made with the elected representatives before passing the impugned order, the bench added.

Furthermore, the impugned orders were not in consonance with the Puducherry Municipalities Act and the Puducherry Village and Commune Panchayats Act, 1973 as well as Constitution, the bench added.

"In such circumstances, we direct the respondents herein to keep in abeyance all further proceedings pursuant to the orders, which are impugned in these writ petitions, in the matter of conduct of election to the Municipalities and Commune Panchayats in Union Territory of Puducherry till October 21 enabling the respondents to file their counter," the bench said.

The three PILs sought to quash the GO of the Local Administration Secretariat, Puducherry dated October 6 and the consequential notifications issued on October 7 by the SEC.

The petitioners contended that by virtue of the impugned notifications passed by the authorities, the reservation meant for Backward Classes and Scheduled Tribes to contest to the five Municipalities and ten Commune Panchayats in the Union Territory of Puducherry, had been completely taken away.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)