SEC plea challenging single judge order admitted

The division bench comprising Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice V Parthiban before whom the appeal came up for hearing, issued notice to the state government and the DMK returnable by four weeks.

On October 4, 2016, Justice N Kirubakaran, who heard DMK’s plea seeking reservation for ST’s, on finding certain flaws in the notification process, had cancelled the local body elections, which was scheduled to be held this month. He also directed TNSEC to issue a fresh notification and complete the process of local body elections by December 31, 2016.

Challenging the single Judge’s order, TNSEC had filed an appeal claiming that the order setting aside the September 26 notification issued for civic polls had resulted in grave miscarriage of justice. 

The appeal further submitted that the single Judge had failed to see that once the election notification is published, the entire state machinery can be requisitioned by the Election Commission for election-related work. Therefore, it is not desirable to prolong the period as it may result in administrative inconvenience. The plea also submitted that the observation of the single Judge that the TNSEC had acted with ‘unwarranted hurry’ was not justified in the facts of the case as elections have to be held within a stipulated time as it was imperative that a new body must take office by October end.