In a severe blow to the UDF government, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday ordered that the State Election Commission (SEC) was free to take appropriate decision and measures for conducting elections to panchayats, municipalities and corporations, taking into consideration the factual situation on the date.
The Bench comprising Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice A.M. Shaffique issued the order while refusing the plea of the State government to stay the verdicts of a single judge quashing a government notification forming as many as 69 new gram panchayats.
The judge had also set aside another government order delinking certain wards from the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode Corporation to form new municipalities.
The Bench directed the State government to extend all assistance for the conduct of elections by the State Election Commission so that the Constitutional mandate to complete elections before the tenure of the existing committees of the local bodies expires is fulfilled.
Referring to the submission of the State Election Commission that it could conduct the elections on the basis of the 2010 delimitation, the court observed: “it is not for us to express any opinion on the above submission.”
It was the Constitutional obligation of the SEC to conduct elections to the local bodies within the time prescribed.
As for the elections to 28 new municipalities, the formation of which has been upheld by the single judge, the Bench ordered that the State Election Commission “is free to take appropriate decision” in this regard as well. Refusing to stay the single judge’s verdicts, the Bench observed that the reasons given by the single judge “cannot be prima facie faulted”.
The submission of the Advocate General that the judgments of the single judge had interdicted the process of holding elections “does not appeal to us,” the court said.