CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court has rejected a plea to declare as unconstitutional an Ordinance promulgated by the State government on November 20, which paved the way for election of Mayors and Municipal chair-persons, indirectly.
Holding that the indirect mode of election cannot be held to be unconstitutional, the bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and R Hemalatha dismissed the PIL petition from VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, on Tuesday.
Among other things, Thiruma contended that the government had provided wrong explanation for having changed the mode of election The very first sentence in the explanatory statement appended to the Ordinance was wrong, as it claimed that elections are held on the basis of political parties.
Neither the Constitution nor the municipal laws, which the Ordinance intends to amend, provided for holding the elections, either to the Parliament, Legislature or the Local Bodies on the basis of political parties. Political parties might sponsor candidates to contest under their name to give an ideological identity to a group of candidates. But the parties do not have any legal footing in the elections, Valavan said.