Urban civic poll notification to should be released before January 26, SEC tells HC

The State Election Commission has on Friday informed the Madras High Court that the Commission is in a position to release notification for conducting elections for the Urban Local Body seats within January 26, 2022, as it has already given an undertaking before the Supreme Court in this regard.

The SEC made this submission before the first bench of Madras HC comprising the Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice PD Audikesavalu. The bench was hearing a plea by former joint-director of Medical Recruitment Board Dr M Nakkeeran. The petitioner prayed for a direction to the State Election Commission to postpone the polls citing the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.

The petitioner submitted that if the SEC goes with the urban civic polls, people would be affected badly by the third wave as the positivity rate has surged to 17%.

However, the judges asked the petitioner why he was seeking to stall the urban local body elections despite election notification issued by the SEC.

Responding to the judges, senior counsel S Prabhakaran appearing for the petitioner said that the SEC and GCC had conducted an all-party meeting and the poll notification could be issued at any time.

Senior Counsel ARL Sundaresan appearing for another counsel had also submitted that conducting elections during the pandemic will put the people’s lives at the risk.

S Sivashanmugam, appearing for the SEC submitted that the Commission has given an undertaking before the Supreme Court in September 2021, assuring that it would release the poll notification within four months.

Since there were some technical glitches in the side of the petitioner that interrupted the virtual hearing proceedings, the bench posted the matter to January 24, 2022. The ACJ asked the litigants to present physically before the court to explain how could the HC restrain SEC from issuing poll notification while the Apex Court had directed the SEC to release the notification before January 26, 2022.

Even as the petitioners wanted an interim injunction restricting the SEC from releasing poll notification before, January 24, the bench rejected their request.