Madras High Court Puts Puducherry Local Body Election Process On Hold

Elections were scheduled to take place in three phases on October 21, 25 and 28. 

Chennai: A few days after criticizing the Puducherry state election commission for anomalies in seats reserved for SCs, BCs and women in the local body elections, the Madras High Court on Monday put the election process on hold. 

According to a report in IANS, the direction was given by a bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu while hearing petitions that pointed out the anomalies in the reservation for these categories. 

“The process of receiving nominations which had already begun in Puducherry would be kept in abeyance. Let the anomalies be addressed and removed before the process is undertaken afresh,” the court said as per the report. 

The order came even as the additional solicitor general R Sankaranarayanan, who represented Puducherry, said that the union government had advised the union territory to defer the local body election. The court said that it was informed by the additional solicitor general that the local body elections which were scheduled to take place from October 21 would be postponed. 

Elections were scheduled to take place in three phases on October 21, 25 and 28. 

According to media reports, the court on Thursday directed the election commission to come up with a satisfactory response to the petitions and upon failing to provide one by Friday, it had warned of stopping the election. 

The petitioners said, reservation of seats for SCs should be made based on the community’s population as per the Puducherry Municipalities Act and Rules and as per the notification made by the election commission on August 23, ward nos 22 (Colas Nagar) and 28 (Ozhandal Keerapalayam) have been reserved for SCs/women and ward nos 24 (Viduthalai Nagar) and 33 (Kombakkam) have been reserved for SC. 

The petitioner further said that the wards reserved for SCs and women were not in proportion with the population as per the census of 2011 because as per the census report, ward no 23 (Nethaji Nagar) has 29.04% of SC population, the ward with the highest SC population followed by ward no 17 (Nelithope) with 28.41% SC population, ward no 6 (Thiruvalluvar Nagar) with 27.71% SC population, and ward no 13 (Pudupalayam) with 25.26% SC population, according to reports.