Chennai
A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha before whom the plea moved by A Hari Nadar came up ordered notice returnable by January 25.
The petitioner had contended that the TN government reserving the post of Mayor Thoothukudi Municipal Corporation under Scheduled Caste is contrary to the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Municipalities and Corporations (Delimitation of Wards or divisions and Reservation) Rules, 1996. He said, originally, the post of Mayor was reserved for women (general) as per the notification of the government on September 16, 2011 based on the 2011 census. It was made clear then that the same shall continue to prevail for two full terms that is 10 years. But suddenly, the general category has been changed to SC without any basis. Also noting that the government may have such power to reserve the post to persons belong to SC/ST if it is proved that their population is high in such areas, the petitioner said Thoothukudi was converted into a Municipal Corporation from 2008 and divided into 60 wards out of which certain number of wards were reserved as per the reservation policy. But till date, there has been inclusion nor deletion of any ward. Hence the present notification issued reserving the post of Mayor to SC is arbitrary.
Moreover, after 2011 the government had not done any physical verification or calculation to prove that persons belonging to SC/ST have increased in number. So, without making any statistical analysis which alone can prove the availability of high percentage of persons belongs to SC/ST in the Corporation area, it is arbitrary on the part of the State government to notify the post of mayor for Thoothukudi, petitioner said.
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