MADURAI: The vacation bench of the Madurai Bench on Wednesday directed the government and state election commission not to conduct local body elections in nine districts without completing delimitation and the process required for announcing reservation. A bench of justices S Srimathy and R Vijayakumar gave the interim direction on a PIL petition filed by K Shunmuganathan of Tirunelveli.
The petitioner said that on May 5, the state election commission had published electoral rolls for nine districts where elections would be held. The previous local body elections in TN was conducted based on the 2011 census.
When it was pointed out by the Madras High Court in a similar case last year that the state had undergone drastic changes in population and other factors, the government had given an undertaking that it would not conduct elections without completing the delimitation and the process required for finalising ward reservations.
However, authorities have now initiated the election process without fulfilling the undertaking, the petitioner said adding, the poll rolls for several wards did not even have photographs of voters, which could pave way for impersonation.
Also, some of the vacancies have not been included for the election, he added, suspecting ulterior motive behind it. Considering the submissions, the judges gave the interim direction, issued notice to authorities concerned and adjourned the case for a month.