SC DISMISSES AP PLEA TO DEFER LOCAL ELECTIONS

The Supreme Court dismissed the AP government’s plea to postpone the gram panchayat polls and cleared the decks for going ahead with the elections as per schedule. A division bench comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy held a hearing on Monday.

Justice Kaul observed, “Ego problems between two authorities are causing all this lawlessness. The court will not be a party to it. Some decisions are political while some are administrative. We will not assume everyone’s functions. Some decisions have to be taken by the SEC.”

From Page 1 He pointed out that elections were held in several parts of the country even during the pandemic. Kerala conducted elections though it witnessed a major spike.

The court took a serious view of interveners like the AP Government Employees

Federation, doctors and bureaucrats and opined that

it was uncalled for. Government senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi argued that holding the elections were difficult as the government was preoccupied with Covid19 vaccination programme and more than five lakh persons were to be vaccinated. He asked whether the government should allow its employees to conduct polls without undergoing vaccination. Rohatgi said Goa had deferred the polls for the same reason. He informed the court that polls could be held from March 1 considering that by the end of January, all healthcare workers could be vaccinated.