Puducherry Local Body Election Can Be Put Off If Distortions In Reserved Seats, Madras HC Warns
The Madras High Court said that there were several anomalies including in the seats reserved for backward classes and no satisfactory answers were obtained to several anomalies
Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday criticised the Puducherry state election commission for anomalies in seats reserved for SCs, BCs and women in the upcoming local body elections. The court also warned of stopping the election if the commission fails to respond satisfactorily by Friday.
According to a report in Times of India, the observation was made by the first bench of Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu before adjourning the pleas moved by Puducherry MLS J Pregash Kumar and N Periannan to Friday for the commission to respond.
The Court, as per the report, said that there were several anomalies including in the seats reserved for backward classes and no satisfactory answers were obtained to several anomalies.
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Quoting the petitioners, the report said that reservation of seats for SCs should be made based on the community’s population as per the Puducherry Municipalities Act & Rules and as per the notification made by the election commission on August 23, ward numbers 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 the report.
The report said that similar anomalies were also observed in seat reservation of backward communities.
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