When will the local elections be conducted? Will the EC submit reply petition today?
Posted on: 20/Feb/2017 11:19:43 AM
The Chennai High Court had ordered the Election Commission that it should reply regarding the dates for organizing of local elections today (Monday, 20th February).
Earlier, the Election Commission had announced its plan to conduct the local elections during September 2016. However, on behalf of DMK, its MP R. S. Bharathi submitted a petition in the High Court that sufficient quota as per rules had not been allotted for the Ancient Tribes.
Judge Kirubakaran, who conducted this enquiry, canceled the elections with the comment that the election announcements were made in haste and the announcement has not adhered to the Tamil Nadu State Panchayat Act Rules.
He also ordered that the new government order should be released before 30th December 2016 and the local elections should be held.
The Election Commission appealed to the High Court against this verdict. However, when this re-enquiry was taken up, the panel of judges refused to cancel the order of the previous judgment of canceling the local elections.
The enquiry of this case was taken up again last week before the Divisional Bench of judges Nooty Rammohan Rao and S. M. Subramaniam last week.
The senior Advocate P. Kumar argued that the Supreme Court had ordered that only the order requested by the petitioner must be released. He explained that this case dealt exclusively only with the quota allotment of seats. However, the judges gave to the verdict to cancel the elections.
He explained that during a particular stage when the verdicts of the judges were not implemented and no action taken, the judges of the High Court do not cooperate in the enquiry of the Election Commission case. Are there no systems to take Xerox copies of the Supreme Court verdicts? Did the Election Commission fail to pay for conducting the enquiry? The court should not act with the intent of stretching the case.
However, the judges protested this argument of the advocate on behalf of the Election Commission and asked that their patience may not be tested. Then they postponed the case to 20th February.
So, today (Monday, 20th February)), it is expected that the Election Commission will repetition its case.
