Chennai: With their tenure having ended on Saturday, the Tamil Nadu Government has extended the terms of special officers appointed to local bodies till June this year since the case relating to conduct of civic elections is still pending in the Madras high court.
In a gazette notification issued on Saturday, principal secretary of rural development and panchayat raj department Hans Raj Verma said the tenure of the special officers appointed on October 25 be extended till June 30, 2017.
The Tamil Nadu Government had on October 17 promulgated two ordinances, signed by Acting Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao, appointing special officers saying that their tenure would end on December 31, 2016, after the Madras high court stayed holding of elections to local bodies originally scheduled for October 17 and 19, 2016.
Two separate ordinances – one for appointing special officers to village panchayats, district panchayats and union panchayats and the other for nominating special officers to town panchayats, municipalities and corporations – were promulgated in October 2016.
Since the case is still pending before the court and a resolution not in sight, the rural development and panchayat raj department said the notification of extension of tenure comes into force on January 1, 2017, and will continue till June 30 2017.
The special officers had been running the day-to-day administration of more than 1 lakh the local bodies in the state since October 25. This is not the first time that the local bodies would be governed by special officers since no local body elections were held during 1991 to 1996.
The Madras high court had on October 4 set aside the civic poll notification saying that the State Election Commission had failed to give sufficient time to the political parties to prepare for it and asked it to hold elections by December 31. However, in late November the state government told the court that it cannot hold elections by December 31 and the case is still pending.
With the tenure of the special officers extended till June 30, there is speculation whether the election would be held and representatives elected before the time period.
The High Court had told the State Election Commission that there should be a gap of 45 days between the date of announcement of polls to the actual date of polling.
