Local body election: State Election Commission’s counsel slammed

When the appeal moved by the SEC challenging the order of a single judge which listed out a series of directions to be adhered to while holding the elections came up after a bout of adjournments before the division bench comprising Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao and Justice SM Subramaniam, SEC’s counsel B Kumar submitted that the single judge had overstepped the petitioner’s prayer and instead offered several directions, which was unsought for. 

The counsel said there were several Supreme Court judgements in his favour and that the directions offered were unwarranted. To this, the bench sought the counsel for the Supreme Court judgements that he was referring to. 

But when the counsel was looking at the books for the same, Justice Nooty Rammohana Rao taking exception to the counsel not coming prepared and failing to include his citations in the typed set, observed “You don’t want to conduct the elections and you don’t want to conduct the case. You are simply dragging on the case. You are irritating us.”

Also, questioning why all Supreme Court orders he was relying on is being submitted one after the other, the judge said “Don’t you have a photo copying machine. You have battery of lawyers to assist you. Your intention seems to be in dragging the matter and not holding the elections.” 

The bench then directed the SEC’s counsel to file the typed set by Monday to enable them finalise the matter. It may be noted that the during an earlier hearing, the bench had directed the counsel to get instructions from the authorities concerned and inform the court as to the exact time required to conduct the local body elections, which was cancelled in October 2016, based on the single judge’s order.