A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court demanding the immediate conduct of the local body polls in Maharashtra.
The Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP) represented by their Pune region chief Vijay Sagar has moved the apex court by filing the PIL through advocate Satya Muley, seeking directions to the State Election Commission to immediately conduct the long overdue municipal corporation elections in the state.
The PIL also challenges the constitutionality of the 2022 amendment to the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act which gives powers to the state government to define and implement delimitation of wards in the local bodies. Earlier, this power was vested with the State Election Commission.
‘ABGP has approached SC because…’
In a release, Sagar said, “Our organisation (ABGP) is receiving several complaints on various civic issues from residents of municipal corporations of Pune, PCMC, Aurangabad, Nagpur, etc. The population under various municipal corporations in Maharashtra is stressed and suffering from crumbling civic services. Locally elected representatives are absent and administrative staff is working arbitrarily without taking the interest of the people into account. There are artificial problems created in the matters of procedure related to property tax, water supply, etc. The administrative heads are arm-twisting the people to recover various taxes illegally. Therefore, ABGP has approached the SC seeking immediate conduct of elections.”
‘Delay in conducting the local body polls is unconstitutional’
Speaking on the PIL, Adv Muley stated, “Most of the municipal corporations are without elected representatives. The entire show is being run by the administrative heads and there is no say of the population through elected representatives. The population is suffering from issues such as scarcity of water, crumbling infrastructure such as roads and footpaths and rampant corruption, as the administrative authorities are not sensitive to people’s issues.” He added that the delay in conducting the local body polls is “unconstitutional” and violates the fundamental rights of citizens under Articles 19(1)(a), and 21 of the Constitution of India.
