Chennai: The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission on Wednesday filed an appeal in the Madras high court, challenging an order of a single judge who set aside the election notifications issued by it for conduct of local body election on October 17 and 19.
The judge had directed the commission to issue a fresh notification, conduct elections and complete the election process by December 31.
In his petition, (yet to be numbered), T.S.Raja Sekar, secretary of TN State Election commission, submitted that the DMK party had filed a petition to quash three government orders relating to reservation to various posts in Local Body election and to direct the SEC to conduct the Local Body Election 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 had on October 4 passed an order directing the SEC to issue fresh notification, invoke transitory provision under section 251 of Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act, to furnish criminal background of candidate, to reject the nomination of candidate, who do not file affidavit by following the notification dated September 1, 2006 etc. Having been aggrieved by the order, this appeal has been filed, he added.
He contended that the election process has gone up to the stage of scrutiny of nominations. Once the election process was underway under Article 243 (O), there can be no judicial order on any of the process. Due to the order of the single judge, every process was at a standstill.
Meanwhile, the DMK party by its Organization Secretary filed a caveat petition in the Madras high court stating that “Let nothing be done in the matter without notice to the Caveator”.
