The Madras High Court on Thursday ordered that all proceedings to be initiated for the conduct of local body elections in Greater Chennai Corporation limits would be subject to the result of a writ petition filed in the court insisting that the reservation of wards for women should not exceed 50%.
Acting Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu passed the interim orders after ordering notices, returnable within two weeks, to the State government, the State Election Commission and the Corporation Commissioner where 105 of the 200 wards had been reserved for women.
The judges granted a short date for filing counter- affidavits after advocate-general R. Shunmugasundaram said the Supreme Court had ordered conduct of local body polls at the earliest. Accordingly, elections to panchayats had been conducted and polls were due only for urban local bodies, he said.
R. Parthiban of West Mambalam had filed the case stating that 89 wards had been reserved for women (general), 16 for Scheduled Castes (women) and 16 for Scheduled Castes (general) candidates. The rest of the 79 wards had been left to the general category.
Senior counsel S. Prabhakaran, who represented the petitioner, said only 84 seats should have been reserved for women (general) leaving an equal number for both men and women.
He said more seats had been reserved for women because of an erroneous process followed by the Corporation in zone-wise reservation of wards.
