Chennai: The Madras high court has reserved its order on a petition from DMK party which sought to direct the state government to conduct the ensuing local body election in the state, by strictly providing adequate reservation to scheduled tribe, followed by necessary rotation of seats in all the posts, as mandated in the Constitution of India.
A single judge reserved orders on Thursday after hearing elaborate arguments from both sides. In its petition, the DMK by its organization secretary R.S.Bharathi submitted that without providing the required mandatory reservation for ST class people, the state government passed orders relating to reservation and rotation in respect of the offices of chairman of panchayat union, seats of wards in district panchayats, seats of wards in panchayat union councils.
Similarly, the director of town panchayats by notification dated September 18, 2016, declared the reservation of seats for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Women in the name of determination of wards in town panchayats for the reservation to the persons for the said classes, without providing adequate reservation for ST.
The Chennai corporation commissioner issued a notification of reservation of wards to Scheduled Caste (general), Scheduled Caste (women() and Women (general) in Chennai city Municipal corporation, in which no seats was reserved for ST, Bharathi added.
During the course of arguments, a senior counsel appearing for DMK submitted that there was no level playing field. The entire election process was done in a hurried manner. The government cannot take advantage of its own wrong and say because the term was coming to an end, the election has to be held immediately as per the election schedule without the illegality being removed.
The election commission has made the ruling party aware of the reservation which made them to announce their candidates as soon as the election schedule was announced on September 25, he added.
Denying the allegation, advocate general submitted that even in 2006, when the DMK was in the helm, elections to the local bodies were notified on September 19 and the nomination process started on September 20.
Even in 2011, the notification was issued on September 21 and receiving nomination was started from the next day. This was a pattern followed by all the ruling governments. The government has complied with all the Constitutional requirements. Once the election schedule was announced, the court cannot interfere in it, he added.
During the course of hearing, the judge made an oral observation that when ever a judge passes an order in a dispute, which has political interests, depending on whose favour the judgment was, the judge was given a political colour, though the decision was made on merits of the case.
