Notify local body polls in 2 weeks: SC directs Maha’s election panel

NEW DELHI: The Maharashtra government’s decision to delay elections to over 2,400 local bodies pending delimitation exercise amounted to “abdication of constitutional duty” and “breakdown of rule of law in the state”, observed the Supreme Court as it set a deadline of two weeks for the state election commission to notify the polls and report compliance to the court in July.

Delinking the local body elections from the exercise of delimitation, justices AM Khanwilkar, AS Oka and CT Ravikumar said, “In five years, there is a constitutional duty to hold elections to local bodies. We find that in 2,486 local bodies, elections are long overdue and there are no elected representatives. Is it not a case of breakdown of rule of law and abdication of constitutional duty?”

The court was considering a petition filed by Ramesh Sheknath Kere Patil and Vijay SP Patil along with the special economic backward class forum of Maharashtra, challenging amendments made by the state’s legislative assembly in March this year that transferred the power to delimit municipal wards and carry out delimitation exercise from the state election commission (SEC) to the state.

The petition, argued by advocate K Parameshwar, pointed out that the amendments were an attempt to defeat the earlier directions of the apex court that held the elections to the seats reserved for the OBC in local bodies can be filled up only after the state fulfilled the triple-test, laid down by the top court in Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case. In its subsequent orders in December 2021 and January this year, the Supreme Court directed the state election panel to re-notify the OBC seats as general category seats and hold elections.

The SEC filed a chart indicating the seats presently governed by administrators and where elections were overdue. The bench directed the SEC to notify elections within two weeks.

The court posted the matter for hearing on July 12.