A single-judge bench of the High Court suspended the State Election Commission's (SEC) order for grounding the ward volunteers from the process of municipal elections.
Justice D.V.S.S. Somayajulu pronounced the verdict on Wednesday, facilitating the deployment of the volunteers for distributing pensions and discharging other duties with the help of their mobile phones as usual.
The SEC issued the impugned order on February 28 for restraining the volunteers from direct or indirect participation in the election process.
The order was intended to prevent the volunteers from influencing the outcome of the elections by leveraging and misusing their reach to the public as a conduit of government benefits and schemes.
The High Court also suspended the order of the SEC which gave fresh opportunity for filing nominations to a few candidates in the elections to Tirupati Municipal Corporation and Rayachoti municipality.
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