‘Urban body polls notice in 15 days not possible’

The public interest litigation petition filed by KK Ramesh came up for hearing before a Division Bench of Justices M Duraiswamy and T Ravindran on Tuesday. 

The petitioner claimed that local bodies in the state had been lying vacant since October 2016, but the State Election Commission (SEC) was not willing to conduct polls. The petitioner further stated that based on orders issued by the Supreme Court on December 9, 2019, the SEC issued a notification that mentioned the conduct of elections to District panchayats, but not to corporations and municipalities. 

The elections to corporations and municipalities were important for the welfare and economic development of the state. Only when all local bodies were elected, common men would be able to get benefits without difficulty, the petitioner submitted. 

Hence, the petitioner sought the bench to direct the SEC to issue fresh notification within 15 days for conducting polls to corporations and municipalities.

After hearing, the bench questioned whether the government authorities had decided on issuing poll notification for conducting elections to corporations and municipalities. The counsel on behalf of the state and SEC said based on a directive from Supreme Court, notification was issued to conduct polls to District panchayats in the first phase and efforts were being taken to conduct polls to elect members of corporations and municipalities. After this information was furnished before the Supreme Court, there’s no objection. But, the counsel ruled out the possibility of issuing fresh notification within a period of 15 days for conducting polls to corporations and municipalities. 

The Bench then directed the counsel to file counter affidavit in this regard and adjourned the case to January 23, 2020.