Delhi Municipal Corporation Mayor Shelly Oberoi Approaches Supreme Court Challenging Election Of MCD Standing Committee Member

The Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Shelly Oberoi, has approached the Supreme Court challenging the election of the sixth member of the MCD standing committee held on Friday(September 27), which was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Aam Aadmi Party had boycotted the election alleging that the process was contrary to the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act.

It is contended that the Standing Committee election was held on the basis of the directions of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) and the Municipal Commissioner, an IAS officer, convened the meeting. This is contended to be illegal as only the Mayor of the MCD can decide the date, time and venue for the corporation meeting where the Standing Committee election takes place.

Reference is made to Regulation 51 of Delhi Municipal Corporation Procedure and Conduct of Business Regulations 1958 to state that the election for the Standing Committee must take place in a corporation meeting presided over by the Mayor. Further, Regulation 3 (2) specifies that the date, time, and venue for such meetings can only be decided by the Mayor. It is stated that Section 76 of the DMC Act specifies that the presiding officer for these meetings must be the Mayor or in her absence, the Deputy Mayor.

However, instead of an elected Mayor, an IAS Officer was made the Presiding Officer of the meeting, which, the petitioner contended, is grossly illegal and unconstitutional.

The vacancy of the 6th Member arose due to the election of BJP's Kamaljeet Sehrawat to the Lok Sabha.

Earlier, on Friday, the BJP had approached the Supreme Court with a contempt petition against the Mayor over the failure to conduct the election to fill the vacancy in the Standing Committee. The party stated that the Mayor postponed the election to October 5 and thereby violated the Court's direction passed on August 5 to fill the vacancy within a month.