Ready to freeze local polls in 9 districts: TN Govt

The Tamil Nadu government told the Supreme Court on Thursday that it was ready to put on hold the elections for local bodies in nine districts, which have been carved out from four earlier districts, for complying with legal formalities such as delimitation and reservation.

The top court was hearing a plea of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) seeking a direction to state authorities to "carry out delimitation, reservation and rotation process and fulfil all other legal requirements before issuing any election notifications and conducting elections" for local bodies in the state.

At the outset, a bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant said the law on delimitation needed to be followed after the bifurcation or trifurcation of four districts into nine.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the state government, referred to various judgements and said once the poll process, even imperfect one, has been in set in motion, no court can or should delay or postpone it.

"You delay the process by bifurcating the districts and then say proper follow-up procedure (delimitation) should not be followed. The law must be followed and if it involves the postponement of polls, so be it," the bench observed.

Senior advocates A M Singhvi and Kapil Sibal, appearing for DMK, asked as to to how the local body polls can be held without proper delimitation which is the "base of democracy" and a wrong impression has been created as if DMK was delaying the poll process.

The DMK, which has approached the top court through lawyers Amit Anand Tiwari and Vivek Singh, has been alleging that the state election panel announced on Monday that polls to local bodies in Tamil Nadu will be held in two phases, on December 27 and 30 without complying the formalities.

The bench gave the state government two options and asked it to either agree to keep bifurcation of districts in abeyance or do not hold local bodies elections for the nine  new districts.

The counsel for the state government later informed the court that it was willing to put on hold the elections in nine districts and the same process will continue in other local bodies in other districts of the state.

"In view of the extraordinary facts and circumstances arising out of the bifurcations/trifurcation of the four districts the following terms are suggested.

"Election will held for all panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels in respect of all the districts except the nine re-constituted districts..," the state government told the court, which would pass a formal order in this regard.

It said that a fresh delimitation exercise will be undertaken in the rest of nine districts and local bodies polls will be conducted later.

Earlier, the court had agreed to hear the plea of DMK on the issue for today.

There are three processes, commission delimitation of each wards of all the Local Bodies, reservation of office of chairman or mayor in a town Panchayat, Municipality or Corporation and rotation policy, which are to be carried out by the state government and the Tamil Nadu Delimitation Commission which is then to be implemented by the Tamil Nadu State Election, DMK said in the plea said.

"These mandatory legal processes are required to be carried out before issuance of any election notification, since the same will not only be ensuring compliance of legal mandate making the election free and fair but also benefit the voters, enable the development of amenities, facilities and status of Wards/ Divisions/Municipalities/Districts Panchayats/ Panchayat union councils and village panchayats," the plea said.

The DMK alleged that the present Tamil Nadu government was dragging its feet on conducting polls and had not carried out delimitation activity for the newly made nine districts and claimed that in many districts even preliminary exercise of delimitation has not been carried out.

The plea said: "The basic legal requirement of publishing draft delimitation proposal/order has not been carried out and in the absence of such publication, neither any objections have been invited or have been received, nor any hearing has been conducted.

"The delimitation authority has also not carried out rotation and reservation of seats, exercise subsequent to publication of draft delimitation order. Hence, state election commission has so far not carried out and completed basic legal formalities therefore, cannot be permitted to local bodies polls in a manner which would not be fair and free and would also be contrary to the mandatory legal requirements."