NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday castigated the AAP govt in Punjab for its “lame excuses” to delay elections to grassroots level governance institutions — municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats — even though the five-year tenure of most of the 42 such bodies expired years ago.
“Non-holding of elections since 2020 is a serious lapse. Your affidavit before the (Punjab and Haryana) high court is full of lame excuses. These are all false and baseless reasons given by the Punjab govt for not holding elections. Hold elections or face action,” warned a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan.
Senior advocate A M Singhvi attempted to diffuse the situation by telling the bench that the state cannot escape holding elections, but sought time till Dec 31 to initiate the process as the delimitation exercise had to be carried out. The fresh delimitation process initiated by the state govt was quashed by the HC.
When advocate general Gurminder Singh pitched in to say that without delimitation several villages would be deprived of voting, the bench said, “We hope the state govt understands the mandate of Article 243U that warrants completion of the elections to the civic bodies before expiry of its five-year tenure. The ground of delimitation is not available to the state to defer elections, as has been laid down by two SC judgements.”
The bench also expressed surprise as to how the state election commission is a co-petitioner with the Punjab govt in the appeal against the HC judgement. “Where is the independence of the EC,” the bench said and directed the state election commission and the Punjab govt to issue notification for civic body elections within two weeks and complete the process, including declaration of results, within eight weeks of issuance of the notification.
The bench said only three out of 42 civic bodies have an elected body. “When the constitutional mandate is to hold elections prior to expiry of the five-year tenure, the state is seeing ghosts and not holding elections for the last four years. These are serious lapses,” it said. Elections to the three civic bodies were held in Jan 2023.
“Non-holding of elections since 2020 is a serious lapse. Your affidavit before the (Punjab and Haryana) high court is full of lame excuses. These are all false and baseless reasons given by the Punjab govt for not holding elections. Hold elections or face action,” warned a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan.
Senior advocate A M Singhvi attempted to diffuse the situation by telling the bench that the state cannot escape holding elections, but sought time till Dec 31 to initiate the process as the delimitation exercise had to be carried out. The fresh delimitation process initiated by the state govt was quashed by the HC.
When advocate general Gurminder Singh pitched in to say that without delimitation several villages would be deprived of voting, the bench said, “We hope the state govt understands the mandate of Article 243U that warrants completion of the elections to the civic bodies before expiry of its five-year tenure. The ground of delimitation is not available to the state to defer elections, as has been laid down by two SC judgements.”
The bench also expressed surprise as to how the state election commission is a co-petitioner with the Punjab govt in the appeal against the HC judgement. “Where is the independence of the EC,” the bench said and directed the state election commission and the Punjab govt to issue notification for civic body elections within two weeks and complete the process, including declaration of results, within eight weeks of issuance of the notification.
The bench said only three out of 42 civic bodies have an elected body. “When the constitutional mandate is to hold elections prior to expiry of the five-year tenure, the state is seeing ghosts and not holding elections for the last four years. These are serious lapses,” it said. Elections to the three civic bodies were held in Jan 2023.
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