Sowmiya Rajendrakumar
Published on: July 29, 2022 at 19:46 IST
The Supreme Court on Thursday granted more time to the Centre and the State Election Commission to file their responses on a plea by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government seeking directions to conduct civic elections in Delhi in a free, fair and expeditious manner.
The AAP has challenged the postponement of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) polls on the ground of delimitation of wards in the national capital.
A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar and also comprising Justices AS Oka and JB Pardiwala posted the matter for next hearing on August 5.
During previous hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing AAP, told the bench that there were three municipal corporations in Delhi and their terms expired in mid of May this year.
He told the bench that the three MCDs have been unified but post-unification, the elections cannot be delayed.
The AAP has made the Centre, the State Election Commission, and the MCD, through the special officer, respondents in the plea.
The Arvind Kejriwal party has said that the unification of three MCDs and the consequential delimitation exercise cannot be a valid ground to defer the civic polls.
The announcement of the election scheduled for the Delhi municipal corporations was deferred in March this year. The polls were earlier scheduled to be held in April.
Later in April, the Parliament passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022 brought by the Centre for the merger of the three civic bodies — North, South and East Delhi municipal corporations or NDMC, SDMC and EDMC.
The erstwhile MCD, established in 1958, was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure as the chief minister.
The process relating to the delimitation of municipal wards is underway in Delhi. Earlier this month, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs formed a three-member commission for carrying out a fresh delimitation exercise of the municipal wards in Delhi.