Chennai: The Madras high court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission to complete the entire local body election process by May 14.
A division bench comprising Justices Nooty Ramamohana Rao and S.M. Subramaniam gave the directive while passing interim orders on an appeal filed by TNSEC, challenging an order of a single judge, which set aside the election notifications issued by the TNSEC for conduct of local elections on October 17 and 18, 2016.
The bench also directed the TNSEC to truthfully implement all the directions of the single judge. Directing the state government to co-operate and provide necessary infrastructure to TNSEC, the bench said the appeal filed by TNSEC would be taken up for final hearing from March 6 on daily basis.
Originally, on a petition from the DMK party, a single judge had on October 4 set aside the election notifications issued by the TNSEC and directed it to issue fresh notification, conduct elections and complete the election process by December 31. Aggrieved, the TNSEC filed the present appeal.
The single judge’s directions included the one directing the election commission to verify the antecedents of candidates and make them execute affidavits disclosing full and complete information about them and to reject the nomination of candidates who fail to file the affidavits.
