Punjab: High court directs state to notify process for civic body elections in 15 days

The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Punjab government and State Election Commission (SEC) to declare poll schedule for five municipal corporations (MCs) and 42 municipal councils/nagar panchayats within 15 days.
“..this court has no hesitation in issuing a writ of mandamus (a court order that compels a government or entity) directing the State Election Commission, Punjab, and the state of Punjab to forthwith comply with the constitutional mandate and initiate the process of holding elections by notifying election programmes in all the municipalities and municipal corporations in question within 15 days from the date of this order without conducting the fresh exercise of delimitation,” the bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Anil Kshetarpal said.
The order came on a clutch of petitions filed earlier this year seeking directions to hold elections in MCs and other local bodies where term has ended. The MCs where elections are to be held are Phagwara, Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The term of Phagwara MC house was over in March 2020 and in other MCs in 2023. As of municipal councils and nagar panchayats, the oldest date when tenure ended is of March 2020 in some cases.
The government had submitted before the court that the department of local bodies is required to constitute delimitation boards for each municipality for conducting door-to-door survey, preparation of rough maps and delimitation of wards. The delimitation boards for 44 out of 47 municipalities have been constituted and the process of constitution of three municipalities, namely Jalandhar municipal corporation, Talwara municipal council and Bhadso nagar panchayat would be issued very soon. The court was also informed that 16 weeks were required for completing the entire process of delimitation of wards.The bench recorded that the constitutional mandate requires that elections to constitute a municipality shall be held before the expiration of a period of six months from the date of its dissolution as per Article 243U(3)(b). “According to this mandate, elections to the municipalities must be completed before the end of their five-year term. Article 243U(3)(b) provides the maximum time limit for holding elections, stipulating that elections must take place within six months from the date of dissolution of the municipality,” it further recorded.
The court also asserted that in several judgments, courts have specifically held that the process of delimitation cannot be made ground to withhold the election process. The Supreme Court has issued directions to all the states/union territories to abide by the constitutional mandate enshrined in Articles 243E and 243U, it further noted.
“Hence, the issue before this court is no longer res integra (an untouched thing). It is fairly settled. Therefore, the court is guided by established precedents and does not need to revisit the fundamental legal principles, but rather apply them to the present case,” it said while issuing directions to the state government. The court also noted that high court judgement of 2023, whereby delimitation exercise of Dera Baba Nanak municipality was quashed by high court, was taken to Supreme Court by the state government. But the apex court has not stayed the high court order.