Madras HC stalls Puducherry local body elections

CHENNAI: Madras high court has once again stalled the election proceedings notified for Puducherry local bodies.
The election notification issued without providing reservation for backward communities (BC) and scheduled tribes (ST) is absolutely bad in law, HC said.
A special division bench of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Abdul Quddhose has directed the Puducherry election commission to keep all the election proceedings in abeyance till October 21.
The court passed the interim order on an urgent plea moved by Puducherry DMK.
Representing the petitioner, senior advocate P Wilson contended that the election notification issued without providing reservation for BC and SC is against the constitutional mandate.
“The withdrawal of reservation is antithesis to social justice which in turn is antithesis to equality as enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution,” Wilson said.
Representing Puducherry MLA J Pregash Kumar who has also moved a similar plea, senior advocate A R L Sundaresan submitted that all the elected legislators of the union territory have unanimously given representation to the commission seeking reservation for BCs and STs.
“While so, the Lt Governor cannot act unilaterally,” he said.
Opposing the plea, counsel for the election commission V Chandrasekaran submitted that the decision to withdraw the reservation was made since no empirical data is available on the population of BCs and STs.
Refusing to accept the contention, the bench said, “The commission has not followed the constitutional mandate and the provisions of the Puducherry Municipalities Act.”