Notify poll plan for civic bodies within 15 days, HC tells state

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the State of Punjab and its election commission to initiate notifying the election programme for municipal bodies within 15 days without conducting any fresh delimitation. The direction is significant as elections to 42 local bodies are due after the expiry of their five-year term.

Skip fresh delimitation

This court has no hesitation in issuing a writ of mandamus directing the State Election Commission and the State of Punjab to forthwith comply with the constitutional mandate and initiate the process of holding elections in all municipalities and municipal corporations in question within 15 days from the date of this order without conducting the fresh exercise of delimitation. HC Bench

“This court has no hesitation in issuing a writ of mandamus directing the State Election Commission, Punjab, and the State of Punjab, to forthwith comply with the constitutional mandate and initiate the process of holding elections in all municipalities and municipal corporations in question within 15 days from the date of this order without conducting the fresh exercise of delimitation,” the court ruled.

Referring to Article 243E and Article 243U of the Constitution on duration of panchayats and municipalities, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Anil Kshetarpal asserted the constitutional mandate required the completion of elections to the municipalities before the end of five-year term.

“Article 243U(3)(b) provides the maximum time limit for holding elections, stipulating that elections must take place within six months from the date of dissolution of the municipality,” the court added.

The issue before the Bench was whether it was permissible to delay the holding of municipalities/municipal councils/municipal corporations/nagar panchayats elections on account of pendency of delimitation exercise.

The state’s stand in the matter was that the department concerned was required to constitute delimitation boards for each municipality to conduct door-to-door survey, preparation of rough maps and subsequent delimitation. It was further stated that the delimitation boards for 44 out of 47 municipalities had been constituted and process for three was pending.

It added that 16 weeks were required for completing the entire process of wards’ delimitation. The state counsel also submitted that previous attempts to carry out delimitation had been quashed by the court in case of “Rajesh Kumar Sharma versus State of Punjab”. As such, it was necessary to carry out fresh delimitation.

The Bench asserted the argument was erroneous as one of the grounds on which the fresh process was set aside in Rajesh Kumar Sharma’s case was that the delimitation process had already been sanctioned on March 31, 2021. The fresh process had been initiated without any justification. The court had also held there was not a single-digit increase in the population and there was no alteration in the municipal limits necessitating the fresh delimitation.

The Bench asserted a Constitution Bench had specifically held that the delimitation process could not be made the ground to withhold the election process.