HC ordered status quo in Puducherry LB polls case

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday ordered status quo for six weeks in a plea against the Puducherry UT local body elections. The direction of the vacation bench of Madras HC further restrained the State Election Commission from announcing election notification for the UT.

Heading the bench, along with Justice S Ananthi, Justice R Mahadevan passed the direction on hearing the petition filed by R Siva, organising secretary, DMK, Puducherry (south) Unit.

The petitioner prayed for a direction to quash an impugned notification issued by Puducherry State Election Commission (SEC) dated October 6, 2021, to conduct the local body elections.

“The SEC is contemplating to proceed with the LB polls without providing reservation of Backward class and Scheduled Tribes and the same is constitutionally and statutorily impermissible. BC and ST People of Puducherry UT is put to serious prejudice on account of denial of social justice, if the elections to the local body are allowed to proceed based on the impugned notifications,” Senior Counsel P Wilson, appearing for Siva submitted.

The petitioner further submitted that the withdrawal of a reservation is in violation of the interim order passed by the HC in 2012. “In 2021, a batch of writ petitions were filed only to sort out the anomalies in the reservation allotted to Scheduled Caste people. After getting such an order, the under the guise of sorting out the anomalies in reserving wards for SCs, the reservation for BCs and STs have been withdrawn,” the petitioner noted.

Siva also noted that the SEC is trying to issue an election notification for conducting LB polls in the UT citing that there is no legal bar for conducting the same.

On recording the submissions, the judge ordered status quo and adjourned the matter for six weeks.