The Madras High Court on Monday expected the Election Commission of India to announce the dates for by-election to R.K. Nagar Assembly constituency, that fell vacant due to the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, on or before December 31.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation filed by Madurai-based activist K.K. Ramesh seeking a direction to the commission to conduct the bypoll at the earliest.
Though the judges were of the view that the petitioner, being a resident of Madurai, cannot seek a direction to conduct elections in RK Nagar constituency in Chennai, they observed that the ECI also could not postpone the elections forever without any end in sight.
When the judges wanted to know when the bypoll would be conducted, the ECI counsel Niranjan Rajagopal said that he would have to obtain instructions from the Commission on the specific dates when it had planned to conduct the election.
Stating that ECI had take steps to conduct the bypoll within six months of the death of Jayalalithaa, he said that the by-election was cancelled due to complaints of large scale bribery of voters in the constituency. On June 2, the ECI passed an order stating that the situation was not conducive to conduct the elections.
