Chennai, May 6 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Friday directed the Puducherry State Election Commission (SEC) to maintain status-quo for six weeks on the issue of notifying election for local bodies in the neighbouring Union Territory.
A vacation bench of Justices R Mahadevan and S Ananthi granted the interim injunction while passing interim orders on a PIL petition from R Siva, the Leader of Opposition in Puducherry Legislative Assembly, and also the Puducherry State Organising Secretary (South) of the DMK.
The main prayer was to quash the notification dated October 6, 2021 of the Local Administration department, which rescinded the earlier ones issued in March 2019. The 2019 notifications provided for 33.5 per cent of seats to Backward Class and 0.5 per cent to Scheduled Tribes in the municipal councils and panchayats at all levels. There are 5 municipalities and 10 village commune Panchayats comprising 108 village panchayats in total.
Petitioner’s senior counsel P Wilson submitted that the provision of reservation for BC and STs and the quantum of such reservation provided under the said notifications were never subjected to any challenge by judicial review.
According to Wilson, the Puducherry government issued a notification on September 22, 2021 for holding the local body elections. As there were anomalies in implementing the rotation procedure in allotting/notifying the wards as reserved ones for SCs, writs were filed challenging the same and by an order passed on October 5, 2021, the High Court granted permission to the government to withdraw the notification.
Later, the government issued another notification rescinding from the earlier notifications which provided for reservation for BCs and SCs. Again writ petitions were filed. However, the government opted to withdraw the same. Following an order passed on December 1, 2021 the petitions were also withdrawn, with liberty to approach again, if aggrieved.
Wilson contended that the High Court had directed the Puducherry government to withdraw the earlier election notification and to issue a fresh one, after rectifying the anomalies in allotment of reserved seats for SCs. After obtaining the said order and under the guise of implementing the same, the authorities had clandestinely withdrawn reservation for Backward Class and Scheduled Tribes and the said exercise is nothing but a fraud being played upon this court.
The SEC is contemplating to proceed with the local body elections without providing reservation of BCs and ST and the same is constitutionally and statutorily impermissible. The members of BC and ST communities in the UT are put to serious prejudice on account of denial of social justice, if the elections were allowed to proceed based on the impugned notifications.
In the said circumstances, ends of justice, therefore, requires that this court may grant an order for injunction restraining the SEC from notifying the polls, Wilson added. PTI CORR SA SA
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Source: The Print
