The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) to issue a notification by September 18 announcing the proposed conduct of local body elections in the State and complete the entire election process, including polling and declaration of results, before November 17.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar passed the order while disposing of a batch of cases, including a writ appeal preferred by TNSEC against a single judge’s October 4 order on the issue and a writ petition filed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for conduct of elections at the earliest.
In his order that had been challenged by way of an appeal, Justice N. Kirubakaran quashed an election notification issued in September last for non-compliance of Rule 24 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Elections) Rules of 1995, which contemplates issuance of advance notification regarding the elections.
Further, ordering the Commission to issue a fresh notification and conduct the elections before December 31 last, the judge issued a set of nine directions which included obtaining affidavits from the candidates with respect to criminal cases pending against them and uploading those details on the Commission’s website.
4 lakh candidates
Assailing those directions, the TNSEC contended before the Division Bench that around four lakh candidates would be filing nominations for the local body elections. It would not be technically feasible to upload the affidavits filed by all of them on the website which might crash due to overload.
Though senior counsel P. Wilson and N.L. Rajah, representing the DMK and the other litigant in the case respectively, disputed the claim, the Bench refrained from expressing its opinion on the technical issue. However, it upheld the single judge’s order that the candidates should disclose their criminal background and the information should be made public.
“Posting of affidavits on the website is the best form of disclosure as all electors can conveniently access the website. The vague assertion of the possibility of the website crashing is, in our view, no ground to withhold relevant information from candidates. We do not find that it was the intention of the Single Bench that the entire affidavit should be uploaded.
“What was directed was that the details provided by the candidates in the form of affidavits and/or in other words, in their affidavits should be accurately uploaded in the website. There is no direction to upload the entire affidavit as understood by the concerned respondents,” the Bench led by the Chief Justice said.
It clarified that TNSEC could accurately consolidate the data provided by the candidates and upload it on its website. The Bench also ordered that the affidavits should be made available in local taluk offices and furnished to anyone who was interested in obtaining copies on payment of requisite charges.
After being informed that certain cases related to the local body elections were pending before the Supreme Court too and that had been listed for hearing on Wednesday, the judges said: “Needless to mention that these directions will be subject to any orders that might be passed by the Supreme Court on September 6, 2017.”
Notify polls: PMK
PMK founder S. Ramadoss on Monday demanded that the State government must notify local body polls without any further delay. Central government officials must be appointed as booth officers to avoid instances where State officials might act favourably to the ruling party in the elections.
In a statement, Dr. Ramadoss said it has been one year since local body polls were stayed as delimitation of constituencies were not carried out. “PMK opposed the local body polls last August because of this. Despite the passing of one year, the government has not done anything,” he said.