Raj HC orders completion of long-overdue panchayat & civic body polls by July 31

Jaipur: Refusing to grant a lengthy extension of the deadline for conducting the long-pending Panchayati Raj and urban local body (ULB) elections in the state, the Rajasthan High Court Friday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to complete the entire election process by July 31. The court also ordered that delimitation and revision of electoral rolls for the elections be completed by June 20.The directions were issued by a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Sanjeet Purohit while disposing of applications filed by the SEC, the Panchayati Raj department and the Local Self-Govt department seeking additional time to hold the polls.The high court, on Nov 14, 2025, had directed the state govt to complete panchayat and civic body elections by Apr 15, 2026, a deadline later upheld by the Supreme Court. The elections, however, were not conducted within the stipulated period and the state govt moved an application seeking an extension of the deadline, prompting former Congress MLA Sanyam Lodha to file a contempt petition before the HC.Appearing for the state, advocate general Rajendra Prasad submitted that despite “all possible efforts”, elections could not be conducted because of delays in delimitation, pending litigation and the incomplete exercise of determining OBC reservation.He also cited extreme summer temperatures, the approaching monsoon season and the requirement of nearly 3.75 lakh personnel to conduct elections across 397 ULBs in the state as factors contributing to the delay.Opposing the plea for extension, counsel Punit Singhvi, representing petitioner Lodha, argued that local body elections were overdue since Jan 2025. Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rahul Ramesh Wagh vs State of Maharashtra, he contended that elections could proceed even without OBC reservation.The high court agreed that polls could not be indefinitely postponed because of the pending OBC Commission report and rejected the state’s request to defer elections until Nov. The bench also observed that “excuses like rain and hot weather have no place in the State of Rajasthan”, and said recurring climatic conditions cannot override constitutional obligations.