Assam: Gauhati High Court Stays Issuance of Panchayat Poll Notification till January 9, 2025

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court on Tuesday issued an order directing the State Election Commission (SEC) not to publish the panchayat election notification until the next date of hearing on January 9, 2025, of several clubbed petitions regarding the delimitation of panchayats.

The single-judge bench of Justice Soumitra Saikia was conducting a hearing on several writ petitions, including WP(C)/5346/2024, filed by petitioners regarding the delimitation of panchayats in Assam prior to the upcoming panchayat election.

The background to the matter in the writ petitions filed in the HC is that, following the Cabinet decision on June 19, 2024, the state government issued a notification dated August 3, 2024, regarding the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed by the District Delimitation Commission of Gaon Panchayat, Anchalik Panchayat, and Zilla Parishad Constituencies in Assam, in consonance with the relevant provisions of Article 243 of the Constitution of India, amended Section 3-A, and Section 5 of the Assam Panchayat Act, 1994, the ECI Guidelines and Methodology, and other relevant provisions of law.

The petitioners, through their respective counsels, submitted that in gross and blatant violations of those legal provisions, Panchayats are delimited without making any proper Gazette Notification, without proper publicity, and giving very short time for filing objections. Also, that such delimitation was done without publishing the population pattern or maps of constituencies as per the ECI guidelines, either at the draft or final stage, thus raising an unclear or confusing picture on the total delimitation process to common voters.

It was pointed out that some constituencies are abnormally big, long, and with abnormally big size of population, while some are abnormally small with very low size of population. In place of existing compact, contiguous, and convenient constituencies, long, big, and inconvenient constituencies are formed. Also that there are cases of exclusion of some wards from one Gaon Panchayat to another, by crossing or jumping over the GPs, wards illogically, by bifurcating or trifurcating revenue villages, and inclusion of the parts of the same to another Gaon Panchayat.

The petitioners further submitted that if the impugned delimitation is not set aside, modified, or rectified, there will be utter chaos and enormous difficulties that were quite avoidable, and the very objectives of taking local self-government to the door of the electorate will be defeated.

The petitions, therefore, called for setting aside the delimitation and for alteration, modification, or rectification of the delimitation as per the relevant provisions of law.

The bench observed that the order dated November 29, 2024, reflected that the matter was deferred until Tuesday at the request of the counsel for the state. Additionally, the assurance was given by the Additional Advocate General that no notification would be published during this period was duly noted and incorporated in the order.

During the instant hearing, it was submitted that the state has filed their counter affidavit during the course of the day.

In this light, the counsel for the petitioner prayed for some time to complete his instructions in the matter, asking for it to be listed in the month of January, 2025. He, however, submitted that the court may consider granting interim protection to the petitioners in respect of the proposed election to be undertaken by the respondents.

The counsel for the respondents, namely K. Konwar, Additional Advocate General, as well as R. Dubey, the counsel appearing for the Election Commission, submitted that the process is underway and the electoral rolls are presently being finalised. Also, that the notification for the panchayat election will be issued by the State Election Commission once the process is over.

Under such circumstances, the court offered the view that the matters require urgent hearing and therefore asked them to be listed on January 9, 2025.

The bench directed that, till the next date fixed, the respondents shall not issue any notification without leave of the court, as this matter is pending for disposal before it.

 Also read: Assam State Election Commission Publishes Draft Panchayat Electoral Roll 2024-25 Online

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