SC directs Pondy govt to hold local body polls

New Delhi: Taking a serious view of the fact that panchayat and municipal elections in Puducherry have not been held for over two years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the union territory to complete the delimitation process in four weeks and thereafter hold the elections without any further delay.

Giving this direction a Bench of justices Rohinton Nariman and L. Nageswara Rao also warned the Puducherry of serious consequences if elections are not held within the stipulated time. The Bench passed this order on a special leave petition filed by Puducherry against a Madras high court order directing holding of elections by June 2015, acting on a petition filed by Ananda Lakshmi.

The Bench gave this direction after hearing senior counsel R. Venkataramani and counsel V. G. Pragasam for the UT, counsel Aristotle for the State Election Commission, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh and Col. Balasubramanian for the Centre, counsel V. Balaji for the original petitioner Ashok Kumar, who was impleaded in this appeal.    

In its order the Bench said, “We are not concerned with reservation of seats. The duration of the elected body will be five years and no more. Presently no election has been held. We understand that the Puducherry Village and Panchayat Act has provisions which are reflective of reservation.”

The Bench said despite the fact that under Article 243 of the Constitution elections have to be held every five years, this process of delimitation has dragged on and has not culminated in any fruitful exercise. Referring to the UT’s submission that the process is stalled as no backward class data has been received from the Centre and hence no delimitation could be carried out, the Bench noted that the Constitution makes it clear that reservation for SC/ST is proportional to the population whereas OBC reservation is the discretion of the government.

The Bench therefore directed the authorities to complete delimitation of municipality and panchayats  within four weeks. The moment this is completed election to the panchayats will be notified immediately.

Needless to add that no further delay can be brooked and it will be open for any party to come back to court in case the strict time line is not followed. On no account will the election process be stalled after delimitation is completed.