Sameeksha Dubey
The Andhra Pradesh HC has ordered the AP government regarding local body elections. The State government – the petitioner in this case – challenged the State Election Commission’s decision to hold local body elections in February.
The Government has filed a petition to challenge the decision of SEC.
SEC has already suffered various problems by the Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government once (Andhra_Pradesh_SEC_case___High_Court_Judgment___May_29) and this is the second time the SEC is trapped in HC by the government.
Government has no plans to hold the election because the vaccination procedure is already in process and has begun. The YSR government contended that the Central Government has already issued guidelines related to vaccination procedures in January and February which will result in the deployment of personnel from all the departments including the police.
The High Court has also asked three Principal Secretary level officials to meet SEC Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar within three days. The court ordered the authorities to explain the details of the government’s object to the SEC.
The orders must be issued on 29th December 2020 in this regard. It was clarified by the court that the place of the meeting will be decided by SEC Nimmagadda and if the matter is not settled yet, the court will hear the arguments again.
It was said by the court earlier that it cannot give any interim order which stays the decision of SEC to conduct the local body election in AP.
Justice DVSS Somajayalu, after hearing the Government’s petition, asked the government to place before it the verdict of SC regarding the conduction of local elections.
C Suman represented the government and informed that holding the election till February was SEC’s unilateral decision. Suman said that the SEC had called the chief secretary to the office and informed her.
Suman gave detailed information regarding the arrangement of the election by mentioning the number of polling booths.
Senior counsel Aswini Kumar, on behalf of SEC, said that the election regulating body has the right to do so.