Latest News | Pondy Civic Polls: Filing of Nomination Extended Till Oct. 4

Chennai, Sep 29 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Wednesday extended till October 4, the time limit for filing nomination for the local body elections to be held in the Union Territory of Puducherry.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu extended the time limit while passing interim orders on a PIL petition from J Pregash Kumar, an independent MLA elected from Muthialpet Assembly constituency in the UT.

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The petition sought to quash a August 23 notification this year and a press release dated September 22 of the Puducherry State Election Commissioner and consequently direct the authorities concerned to comply with the reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes as per Section 9 of the Pondicherry Municipalities Act and Rules 5 and 6 of the Pondicherry Municipalities (Allotment and Rotation and Reserved Seats and Offices) Rules.

"A serious anomaly has been shown by the petitioner in how the selection of wards reserved for Scheduled Castes has been made for the Municipality election in Puducherry," the bench said.

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Though it is admitted on behalf of the Puducherry government that this is the first election being conducted on the basis of the 2011 census, yet it appears that the wards with higher percentages of Scheduled Castes population have not been reserved, but those with lesser percentages of SC population have been declared as reserved constituencies. The date fixed for nomination is apparently September 30, 2021.

"In view of the grievances that have been aired and there being an apparent anomaly, the date fixed for filing nomination must necessarily be extended before the matter is resolved. Accordingly, the date fixed for filing nomination will now, tentatively, stand extended till October 4," the judges said and posted the matter for further hearing for Thursday.

(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)