SC to hear DMK's plea on local body polls on Dec 11

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on December 11 a plea questioning the validity of the notification issued on December 7 for holding local bodies polls in Tamil Nadu as per 1991 census which is in contravention of the apex court's judgement.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi and advocate Amit Anand Tiwari mentioned the fresh plea filed by the DMK.

They sought an urgent hearing in the matter as the filing of the notification was already on.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde posted the petition for consideration on December 11.

The main opposition party claimed that the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission had, in gross contempt of the apex court order of December 6, proceeded to issue the notification hurriedly to conduct the local bodies election for 27 districts.

The court had then directed to ensure appropriate reservation at all levels in accordance with Rule 6 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Reservation of Seats and Rotation of Reserved seats) Rules, 1995.

The press release by the State Election Commission on December 7 said that the 2016 notification for reservation will be followed for the upcoming local bodies elections.

"The 2016 notification for reservation of seats is based on the census of 1991 and cannot be used in view of the Delimitation Act, 2017 and the constitution of Delimitation commission to carry out the reservation in local bodies," the DMK said.

Thus, using the 2016 reservations for local bodies in the present elections, despite alleged fresh delimitation based on a census of 2011, is on the face of it, illegal and the notification deserves to be set aside, the party contended.

The top court had on Friday said that the constitutional object of Panchayat and local self-governance cannot be effectively achieved unless the delimitation exercise and reservation in proportion to the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes at all levels were properly undertaken.

The court had said the elections could be held to all Panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels, except in nine reconstituted districts of Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Vellore, Thirupathur, Ranipet, Viluppuram, Kallakurichi, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi.

It had given four months' time to finish the delimitation exercise in nine districts.