Chennai: The DMK has approached the Madras high court to punish authorities for allegedly violating the orders of the court on local body polls. When senior counsel P. Wilson appeared on behalf of DMK mentioned the matter before the first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar the bench accepted to hear the petition on Monday.
In the contempt petition DMK represented by its organization secretary, R.S. Bharathi, submitted that ordinance was issued on September 3, 2017, by the state government, which falls on Sunday and a day prior to the pronouncement of judgment by the First Bench on local body polls. “There was no need for the executive to pass this ordinance on a Sunday September 3, 2017, and there is no grave urgency to pass such ordinance by executive when Assembly was not in session”.
The authorities appeared and argued before the court and orders have been reserved on August 1, 2017. Hence, they should have sought permission from this court to bring out such ordinance. The acts of the respondents are certainly contemptuous and overreaching the court proceedings particularly when the matters were heard and reserved for orders. This shows there is no rule of law prevailing in the state.
The State Election Commission on September 18, 2017, filed a modification petition in stating that there is a legal disability in the conducting the local body elections because of the repeal of certain Sections of Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act, 1994, and to keep in abeyance of the order dated September 4, 2017, by which the first bench of Madras high court directed the SEC to conduct the elections by November 17, 2017.
The SEC has taken law in to his own hands and claims that he is neither bound by orders of court or by the constitution but remain loyal and faithful to political masters of ruling party who are his appointees. SEC claims that unless his political master who has appointed him gives a green signal he will not issue election notification for the local bodies. Finding fault with the state government, which passed the ordinance of repealing the above acts the DMK filed the contempt petition.
