Team Herald
PANJIM: With the State government recommending the postponement of elections to 186 village panchayats, due by June 19, by almost three months, the State Election Commission (SEC) has asked the government to approach the “appropriate court of law” for permission to postpone.
In a bid to follow the triple-test mandate laid down by the Supreme Court for OBC reservation and with the likely advancement of monsoons over Goa in the first week of June, the State government had recommended SEC to postpone polls by three months and it will appoint administrators to look into the affairs of the panchayats, as the term of existing bodies ends on June 19.
The SEC has now sent back the file, after seeking a legal opinion. “The SEC has asked the government to approach the appropriate court to seek permission for postponement of the elections,” sources said adding ‘in this matter, the State will have to move the Supreme Court for the permission”.
Sources said that there is a Supreme Court ruling that elections cannot be postponed and have to be held before the expiry of the five-year tenure.
“As such, it would be legally suitable to take permission of the court to postpone the elections,” sources said.
While the BJP-led Goa government is considering the postponement of the elections, citing the “triple test” laid down for reservation by the Supreme Court, the very same judgment, pronounced by the three benches, on May 10, has held a “constitutional mandate” for the conduct of elections before the expiry of the five-year tenure of local bodies “inviolable”.
“Elections which are already due need not and cannot be delayed on that (triple-test) count in view of the constitutional mandate. As and when, the formalities of the triple test are completed, that can be reckoned for future elections to be held thereafter,” a bench of justices AM Khanwilkar, AS Oka, and CT Ravikumar said in a matter related to local body elections in Madhya Pradesh.
The State government had tentatively scheduled panchayat elections on June 4. Accordingly, the SEC had notified the ward delimitation and had even submitted the seat reservation proposal to the government, by de-reserving OBC.
However, State Advocate General Devidas Pangam opined that the government should follow the triple-test mandate, and accordingly, the government-directed OBC Commission to prepare a report on the community population and reservation, accordingly.
Under the triple test, the State government has to appoint panels and collect empirical data for quantifying the extent and backwardness of every panchayat wise while ensuring that the reservation quota does not exist exceed the 50 percent ceiling.
