Chennai: Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday informed Madras high court that its hands are tied relating to the conduct of elections to local bodies immediately.
The special bench comprising Justices M Sathyanarayanan and M Sunder, before which the contempt plea filed by DMK came up for hearing on Monday, the senior counsel for SEC, CS Vaidyanathan said that the commission hands are tied in view of the recent amendments made to the TN local bodies legislation.
The provision, which was made available to conduct the elections without completing delimitation process based on the latest census, has been removed. Hence, the commission cannot conduct the elections without completing the delimitation process.
The commission had already commenced the delimitation process based on the 2011 census and it would be completed by August 31. A detailed proposal will be submitted to the state government. Once the state approves the proposal, the next stage would be to conduct street wise survey to ascertain the SC and ST for reservation of wards as such data is not available with the directorate of census which would take at least two months.
Once the state government approves the reservation the election notification may be issued, and the entire election process could be completed in 75 days from the date of notification.
The bench asked the senior counsel for the state Aryama Sundaram as to the time required for approving the delimitation proposal. Sundaram said, the state can give a tentative time only after getting the proposal from the delimitation committee. Later, the bench posted the contempt plea to Aug. 14 for further hearng.
