Once EC notifies the polls, it cannot be stayed: Delhi HC refuses to postpone MCD elections 2022
New Delhi, 7 November 2022: Ahead of the Delhi MCD elections 2022, the Delhi High Court has argued that after the election commission has notified about the polls, the procedure cannot stay or be postponed.
This development came after several petitions were filed challenging the delimitation of certain wards and their reservation.
The petitioners’ attorney argued in front of a division bench that included Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, that the MCD elections should be postponed until the issues are resolved. However, the court stated, “Once the election is notified, we cannot suspend it.”
The State Election Commission had announced the MCD election on November 4. The voting day is December 4, and the election results are tallied on December 7.
The State Election Commission, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Delhi government were then given notifications by the court, and the appeals were scheduled for hearing on December 15 together with another case involving a related topic.
Additionally, the petitioner claimed in one of his arguments that he intended to run in the elections but that the wards from where he wanted to do so were allocated to candidates from the Scheduled Caste (SC) or SC women.
They argued that the reservation of seats for SCs in municipal wards was arbitrary, and the impugned reservation order had numerous legal flaws that rendered it ineffective for the purposes for which Article 243T of the Indian Constitution—which deals with the reservation of seats for SCs and STs in every municipality—was intended. A State Election Commission order concerning ward reservation from October 20 has been contested in this plea.
The president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, Anil Kumar challenged the Centre’s October 17 gazette notification regarding the formation of the 250 wards, “without making the serious changes in the formation of wards” that Kumar had suggested in his representation to the relevant authorities.
The October 17 ward notice was challenged by Kumar as being “unconstitutional and ultra vires,” and he also asked for a directive to the respondents to redelimit the wards in accordance with the established formula.
According to Kumar’s argument, the division of the wards based on community and religion is a violation of the fundamental principles of the Indian Constitution. Additionally, Kumar’s petition claims that the list of 250 wards that was published in the gazette notification was made without conducting any field surveys or inspections of the wards to identify all the irregularities that the residents, including Kumar, had brought out.
