HC nod to municipal polls in Haryana

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Chandigarh, May 17

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today permitted the state of Haryana to go ahead with elections to the municipal bodies.

A Division Bench made it clear that the elections would be held in terms of an order passed by the Supreme Court in the case of “Suresh Mahajan versus State of Madhya Pradesh”.

The Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shankar Jha and Justice Arun Palli has already made it clear that the panchayat elections in the state would be subject to a decision on a writ petition challenging the exercise of the reservation for Backward Class.

In one of the applications filed in the matter, Ram Kishan Mahlawat, through his counsel Deepkaran Dalal, had submitted that the exercise undertaken by the authorities was contrary to the Supreme Court decision rendered in the case of “Vikas Kishanrao Gawali versus the State of Maharashtra and others” and “Rahul Ramesh Wagh versus the State of Maharashtra and others”.

Dalal further submitted that the state’s attempt to provide proportionate reservation to the Backward Class was also contrary to the constitutional mandate, which was not permissible. “The counsel for the parties are in agreement with the fact that no notification for elections in the State of Haryana has been issued till date…. All the respondents are directed to file their responses to the applications for stay filed by the petitioners, keeping in view the aforesaid aspect of the matter,” the Bench asserted.