Election commission displayed ‘unwarranted hurry’ in conducting local body polls, Madras HC says

CHENNAI: The state election commission (SEC) displayed an 'unwarranted hurry' in conducting the local body polls in Tamil Nadu, and no level playing field was made available to all political parties, the Madras high court said on Tuesday, setting aside the September 26 poll notification on Tuesday."The election commission, having delayed the onset of the election work, is rushing through

the procedures in a hurried manner, thereby causing prejudice to the other contesting parties," the court said. Referring to the submission by the DMK's senior counsel that the AIADMK had released its entire list of candidates on the very date of poll notification, the single judge said: "The ruling party, obviously, had prior information about the election, as proved by the announcement of its candidates on the date of notification. The ruling party was privy to the election date and got ready in advance, having an early start in the poll work, when other stake holders had only knowledge about the poll notice by the announcement made by the election commissioner in a press meet at 6.15pm on September 25."

He was passing orders on the writ petition filed by DMK organising secretary R S Bharathi.

SEC's failure to issue two separate notifications as mandated in Rule 24 of the Tamil Nadu Panahayats (Elections) Rule 1995 proved fatal to the impugned poll process. Besides a publication of gazette notification under Rule 24(1), another public notice of the proposed election should be issued by the SEC. However, in the case of present elections, it made an announcement through the Press on September 25, and then notified the polls on September 26.

The judge, holding that a press announcement could not be considered a notification, said it amounted to non-compliance of rules. Also, SEC published only district gazette publications and not Tamil Nadu Gazette though Rule 24 mandated publication in both. In order to ensure that there was no vacuum after the expiry of term of the present local bodies on October 24, the judge said the government should invoke Section 261 of Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act and appoint special officers to exercise powers and discharge functions of local bodies till election is over and new elected representatives take charge.

During the period, the state government and the SEC should look into and decide about complaints regarding reservation and de-reservation of posts besides addition and deletion of eligible voters, and enrolment of bogus voters before conducting the election.

Exercising its constitutional powers under Article 243K, the Election Commission should write to all recognised and registered political parties and organisations within a month, asking them not to field or sponsor candidates with criminal background to prevent criminalisation of politics and hijacking of local bodies by criminal elements, the judge said.

It is the bounden duty of the election commission to verify the antecedents of candidates and make them execute affidavits disclosing full and complete information about them, the judge said, adding that the election commission should reject the nominations of candidates who fail to file the affidavits. Such information should be consolidated to create a database for future use, he said.

Election commission displayed ‘unwarranted hurry’ in conducting local body polls, Madras HC says