The possibility of conducting local body elections in the State before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls appears remote as the State government and the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court that it would take about six weeks to reserve the wards in civic bodies for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and M. Sundar was told that though the State government on Friday notified the newly redrawn wards for local bodies across the State on the basis of recommendations made by the delimitation commission, the consequent process of reserving the wards would take a minimum of six weeks.
Only after the wards are reserved and notified in the government gazette will the TNSEC be able to fix the dates and notify the elections, taking into consideration various factors. Since the notification for the Lok Sabha elections was expected to be issued some time in March 2019, local body poll before it is highly doubtful.
Contempt petition
The Division Bench was hearing a contempt of court petition filed against State Election Commissioner M. Malik Feroze Khan, TNSEC secretary T.S. Rajasekar, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Secretary Hans Raj Verma and Municipal Administration Secretary Harmander Singh when the submission on reservation of wards was made.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the principal Opposition party, had filed the contempt petition last year, through senior counsel P. Wilson, alleging wilful disobedience of an order passed by the court on September 4, 2017 directing the commission to notify the civic polls and complete the entire poll process in the State before November 17 that year.
Senior counsel C. Aryama Sundaram contended that government officials could not be hauled up for contempt since the judicial direction to conduct local elections was issued only to the TNSEC and not to the government or bureaucrats.
“When there was no direction to them at all, the question of wilful disobedience thereof will not arise at all,” he argued. The senior counsel also said that even the TNSEC officials could not be held guilty of contempt because they could not obey the court orders because of an ordinance promulgated on September 3, just a day before the judgement was pronounced. The ordinance had withdrawn crucial legal provisions related to delimitation of wards and necessitated an elaborate exercise of carrying out delimitation on the basis of the 2011 census. The officials had diligently carried out that exercise since then and had completed it on December 14 this year by notifying the newly redrawn wards in the gazette, the court was told.
After hearing Mr. Sundaram, the Division Bench adjourned further hearing on the contempt of court application to January 7 for allowing him to complete his arguments and also to hear senior counsel AR.L. Sundaresan representing the Municipal Administration Secretary and the counsel representing the TNSEC officials.
