'20,000 Local Bodies Functioning Beyond Tenure" : Supreme Court Direct MP State Election Commission To Notify Local Body Election Within Two Weeks

The Supreme Court on Tuesday passed an interim order directing that the MP State Election Commission must notify the programme for elections to the over 20,000 local bodies within two weeks as per existing wards, without putting it off for the completion of the 'triple test' exercise to provide for OBC reservations and for carrying out the further delimitation procedure.

The bench headed by Justice A. M. Khanwilkar ruled that the constitutional mandate that new members must be elected to all bodies when the 5 year tenure ends and that the incumbents cannot continue for more than six months beyond their tenure is inviolable; that the reality in MP where over 20,000 local bodies are functioning beyond tenure cannot be countenanced; that the process of further delimitation cannot be a legitimate ground to disrupt the principle of for the people, of the people, by the people.

The bench even added that political parties claiming to be in favour of the OBC may consider nominating OBC candidates to the general category seats.

Last week, while hearing SG Tushar Mehta for the state, Justice Khanwilkar had expressed- "23,000 local bodies are without elected representatives functioning since how many years? This is the kind of governance! Shocking state of affairs! It is nothing but broken down of rule of law! In that case yesterday (regarding local body elections in Maharashtra), we did not record in the order, but in your case we will record. Look at the consequences of what you are up to. Everybody is governed by the constitutional mandate. What about the constitution? It is because of wrong priorities and political compulsions that the situation is this. If everything goes in order, there will be no issue! These are all political compulsions, take any state, that is the universal rule, everybody wants to remain in authority"

Continuing, the judge had observed, "Each day's delay is problematic...Nothing is going to happen- The heavens will not fall if there is no provision for OBC for this election. The constitutional mandate has to be complied with. The triple test has not come right now. It is there from 2010. There was enough time for all the authorities to act upon it. The judgment was pronounced recently in 2021 also and it was mentioned very clearly that for future elections this will be the norm. Despite that, nothing has moved forward. Delimitation is a continuous process, it can continue. The day on which the elections became due, on that day what was that delimitation? We will ask the State election commission to proceed notionally on that basis"