Declining to interfere with the MCD polls scheduled for December 4, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday rejected the request of three petitioners who sought a stay on the elections till their pleas challenging the delimitation of wards were heard.
A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said the State Election Commission (SEC) has already issued a notification for the civic polls. “The Election Commission’s notification is there. We cannot touch it now,” the Bench said, adding, “Once elections are notified, we can’t stay it.”
Last week, the SEC announced that elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will be held on December 4 and the counting of votes will take place on December 7.
The announcement of the dates comes months after the previously scheduled elections to the city’s three erstwhile municipal corporations — North, South and East — in April were called off due to the Centre’s decision to merge the civic bodies into one unified MCD.
The total number of seats, i.e. wards, was reduced to 250 from previous 272, after the final report of the delimitation exercise was approved and notified by the Central government on October 17.
Of the 250 wards, 42 have been reserved for SC candidates — including 21 for SC women — while 104 each have been reserved for unreserved category and women candidates.
Hearing the three petitions, the court on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre, the Delhi government and the SEC seeking their response, and posted the case for further hearing on December 15.
The three petitions — filed by National Youth Party, Sanjay Gupta, and resident welfare association (RWA) of B Block Hari Nagar — sought quashing of the October 17 notification by the Centre.
Mr Gupta, in his plea, said he intended to contest in the polls but has allegedly been shut out because the wards from where he wanted to contest have been allotted to either SC or ST or women.
The RWA, meanwhile, raised the issue of exclusion of some houses from Hari Nagar ward and their inclusion in another ward.
The court is also seized of another petition by Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar, challenging the delimitation of wards. He had sought directions for fresh delimitation while claiming that the formula adopted by the authorities for the exercise was “wholly arbitrary, irrational, unintelligible, confusing and suffered from various legal infirmities”. The court also posted his case for hearing on December 15.
