Notification for civic polls possible only next year: State Election Commission

NEW DELHI: The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday told the Supreme Court that the notification for local body elections could be possible only next year and is likely to be declared by February 2018.A Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi took the statement of State poll panel on record and tagged the case with the main petition for further hearing, which is pending before the Chief Justice.
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar appearing for SEC said the census stating appropriate reservation and rotation of seats according to the norms has already been started and will be completed by February next year.

“Once the census is over, we will issue a notification for elections. But this all will take time and elections can be held as early as in 2018 only,” Kumar told the Bench.The development follows a month after the Madras High Court directed the SEC to complete the local body elections by November 17.The Bench delivered its judgment on an appeal by the SEC against the order of a Single Judge, directing it to hold the local body polls before December 31, 2016.

However, the judges made it clear that this would be subject to the outcome of special leave petitions pending in the Supreme Court on the matter.The polls were slated to be held in October last year, but cancelled by Justice N Kirubakaran on a petition from the DMK seeking among others appropriate reservation as per latest census and rotation of seats according to the norms. He had on October 4 last year quashed the SEC poll notification.