Notify municipal polls in 15 days: SC
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Punjab Government and the State Election Commission (SEC) to notify municipal elections in the state within 15 days and complete the entire process in eight weeks from the notification.
Hearing the Punjab Government’s petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s October 19 order to notify elections in all municipalities and municipal corporations in 15 days without conducting fresh delimitation, a Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan partially modified the order.
It noted that the state government’s reliance on the pending delimitation process was misplaced, as there were no significant changes in population or municipal boundaries. Extending the time for holding municipal elections, the Bench said the state was at liberty to request the HC to defer the contempt proceedings.
In its October 19 order, the HC had asked the Punjab Government and the SEC to notify poll schedule for five municipal corporations and 42 municipal councils/ nagar panchayats within 15 days. The elections for municipal corporations of Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar, Phagwara and Ludhiana had been pending for two years.
Represented by senior counsel AM Singhvi and Punjab Advocate General Gurminder Singh, the state government wanted to delay the elections on account of pending delimitation exercise for which it needed 16 weeks.
However, the Bench said, “No question of delimitation. We don’t want to say anything today; otherwise you will invite strictures against you (Punjab Government). You first go and hold the elections. There are two Supreme Court judgments against you. Law mandates that you start the process before expiry of the term.”
“For panchayat elections you are very keen, but for municipalities you want to delay on some pretext or the other,” Justice Kant said.
The Bench reminded the state government of its obligations under Article 243U(3) of the Constitution that mandated that an election to constitute a municipality would be completed before the expiry of its five-year duration or before the expiry of a period of six months from the date of its dissolution.
