Andhra Pradesh High Court suspends schedule of panchayat polls

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday suspended the panchayat election schedule announced by State Election Commissioner (SEC) Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar.

Hearing the petition filed by the State government, challenging the SEC’s announcement on holding the elections from February 5 to 17, opined that the SEC had not taken the decision in an objective manner. Justice M Ganga Rao, in his interim order, ruled that after carefully considering the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the court prima facie came to a conclusion that the SEC notified the elections without proper consultations with the State government as per the Supreme Court order.

The court found that the SEC also failed to consider the inputs provided to it by the government objectively in proper perspective.

It opined that the decision was in violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The SEC’s decision to conduct elections will certainly hamper and create hindrance to the mammoth vaccination programme taken up by the Centre and to be implemented by the State government to contain Covid-19 and its mutation. In the interest of public health, the SEC orders are hereby suspended, the Judge ruled.

Allowing the supplementary petition filed by the State government seeking interim orders, the hearing was adjourned to February 15.

Appearing for the State, Advocate General S Sriram argued that the SEC took a unilateral decision for conducting panchayat elections. He said keeping public health in mind and the massive corona vaccination drive in the State, they are opposing the elections at this juncture.

The AG further argued that the SEC has not considered the State government as a partner in the consultation process. “It disregarded our objections to conduct of polls at this juncture and reasons for the same,” he said.

Sriram said that as per the HC orders, panchayat elections should have been held by October 2018. However, it was not done and after the High Court’s intervention, the SEC started the election process for MPTCs and ZPTCs in March 2020 but did not issue notification for the polls. In the same month, when Covid-19 was in its initial stage, the SEC unilaterally decided to postpone the elections without even consulting the government, he argued.

Appearing for the SEC, senior advocate N Ashwin Kumar argued that once the election schedule is announced, courts should not intervene and the same was said by the SC on different occasions.

The court order is a vindication of the government, which in fact informed the SEC at a meeting late last week that polls are not advisable in view of the vaccination drive, as the government apparatus would be completely involved in the exercise. Meanwhile, there is a speculation that Ramesh Kumar may appeal against the interim order.