Bills regarding local self-body elections challenged in Supreme Court

Aurangabad, April 21:

The hearing on petition filed challenging the two bills passed by the Maharashtra Legislature regarding the local self-government elections will be held in the Supreme Court on April 25. Meanwhile, the state government has today sought time from the Apex Court to submit the say in this regard.

The two bills were passed unanimously on March 11, 2022. It has withdrawn the authority of state election commission (SEC) to delimit the prabhags and also directs the SEC for further election process with consultation of state government. It means the election process done by the SEC stands scrapped.

The bills were challenged by city’s Pawan Shinde and others in the Supreme Court. Earlier, the hearing was postponed till April 21, after the state government sought time to submit an undertaking on April 7. Meanwhile, the state government has submitted an undertaking stating that all the rights of SEC remains unaffected after the new bills. It further stated that the SEC deprives of adequate system to delimit the prabhags, therefore, the state government has kept the rights with itself. There is no violation of constitutional rights. However, when the petition was heard on April 21 (Thursday), the state government sought time to submit the revised undertaking.

On the request of state government, the Apex Court bench comprising Justice A M Khanvilkar, Justice Abhay Oak and Justice C T Ravikumar scheduled the next hearing to be held on April 25.

Elections pending in more than 2K LSGs

There are more than 2,000 local self governments where the elections are due to be held. Instead of public representatives, these LSGs are being governed by the government through the administrators. The bills passed by the state’s cabinet are unconstitutional and illegal. Hence they should be cancelled. The petitioners requested the Apex Court to grant a stay order and direct the SEC to complete the whole election process.

Adv Sudhanshu Chaudhary, Adv Devdutt Palodkar, Adv Shashibhushan Aadgaonkar, Adv Parmeshwar and Adv Kailas Autade pleaded on behalf of the petitioners, Adv Ajit Kadethankar represented the SEC, senior counsel Shekhar Nafade and Adv Rahul Chitnis voiced on behalf of the state government.