Madras HC asks SEC: When can local polls be held

Chennai: The Madras high court on Wednesday directed the state election commission to furnish before it on August 1 the possible time frame for conducting the elections to the local bodies.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M.Sundar, posted to August 1 further hearing of an appeal filed by the state election commission and the petition filed by the DMK party relating to local body elections.

When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, Senior counsel B.Kumar, appearing for the SEC, submitted that it is not possible to implement certain directions of the single judge, which included one to scan and upload in its website the affidavit of the candidates as there will be 4.90 lakh candidates, whose affidavits running from 6 to 10 pages cannot be scanned and uploaded in its website within three days.

As regards the other directions of the single judge, the SEC was holding consultations with the state government, he added.

Advocate general R. Muthukumaraswamy submitted that as regards the consultation process, already two letters have been addressed to the SEC and it will be completed soon. The state government has incurred a loss of Rs 175 crore due to the cancellation of the local body elections. If the elections were to be conducted after delimitation, a sum of Rs 45 crore would have to be spent, he pointed out.

Senior counsel P. Wilson, appearing for the DMK party, submitted that thrice the Supreme Court has said the SEC can go ahead with election and it was not preventing them from conducting the election. Delimitation can be done after election also. The SEC cannot say delimitation has to be done before the election. Some of the directions which  SEC finds difficult to implement were either suggestions or recommendatory in nature. The SEC cannot cite this as an excuse, Wilson added.

The bench orally asked the SEC, “Assuming that the impediments like census, delimitation, population, are out of the way, what is the possible time frame, the SEC requires to conduct the election, and inform the same to the court on August 1.” Senior counsel Kumar said the SEC requires 50 days from the date of issuing notification to the assuming of office by the candidates.

The appeal preferred by the state was against an order of a single judge, which quashed the election notification issued by the SEC earlier and directed the SEC to conclude the election process by December 31, 2016 besides issuing 9 directions to comply with.

Aggrieved over the indefinite extension of the tenure of Special Officers and not conducting the elections despite court order, the DMK filed the present petition to direct the SEC to hold the local body elections within the time frame fixed by the court.