Lokmat News Network
Aurangabad, April 25:
The hearing on petition challenging the two bills passed by the Maharashtra Legislature curtailing powers of State Election Commission (SEC), relating to local self-governing bodies elections, will be held in the Supreme Court, on May 4.
When the case came up for hearing today (on April 25), the Apex Court granted time to submit the affidavit submitted by the state government and the SEC to other respondents in the case. Meanwhile, the bench of Supreme Court comprising a panel of Justice A M Khanvilkar and Justice Abhay Oak made it clear that hereafter the hearing will not be postponed.
It may be noted that the two bills, which curtail powers of the SEC to delimit prabhags and mandate it to consult the government for further election process of local self-governing bodies including Aurangabad Municipal Corporation, were unanimously passed on March 11, 2022.
Local activists and alert citizens Rahul Wagh, Pawan Shinde, and others challenged these bills in the Supreme Court.
The petitioners requested the court to grant a stay on these bills, scrap them and allow SEC to proceed further as per the directives of the Supreme Court.
Adv Sudhanshu Chaudhary, Adv Devdutt Palodkar, Adv Shashibhushan Aadgaonkar, Adv Parmeshwar and Adv Kailas Autade represented the petitioners, while Adv Ajit Kadethankar appeared for the SEC and senior counsel Adv Shekhar Nafade and Adv Rahul Chitnis, for the State government.