The election of the six members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Standing Committee was postponed by the Delhi High Court on Saturday (MCD).
In-depth details about Big setback for AAP as Delhi HC upholds the MCD Standing Committee’s re-election
The proposed re-election notice issued by Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi was put on hold by the Judge Gaurang Kanth bench.
“Despite the fact that the results have not been made public, this court determines that an election has been held prima facie. No goal will be achieved by holding a new election, “The bench stated in its order.
The Delhi Municipal Corporation Act does not permit the Mayor to prevent the results of the election from being declared, despite the fact that the Mayor serves as the returning officer, according to the reasoning made in the appeal submitted by BJP Councillors Shikha Roy and Kamaljeet Sherawat.
The judge stated that it was “prima facie clear” that the election had taken place and the votes had been counted, even though the outcome had not yet been announced. “From a perusal of regulation 51, it is nowhere reflected that Respondent no 4 (Mayor/Returning officer) has authority to declare an election of the standing committee as null and void,” he added.
The notification for the February 27 election has been temporarily stayed by the high court, and Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena and Mayor Shelly Oberoi have been given notices to file their responses to the petitions. The hearing has been rescheduled for March 27.
The Municipal Secretary and the Mayor are required to keep all ballots, CCTV footage from the election and House proceedings, and “any other associated material” for a period of three months in case the court needs to review the evidence.
Senior attorneys Dayan Krishnan and Rahul Mehra stated that the violence in the house and the behaviour of the BJP Councilors was the grounds for calling a re-election in their case on behalf of Mayor Shalley Oberoi.
In the meantime, the BJP asserted on Saturday that the mayor should accept the outcome and make the announcement based on calculations made by technical experts the day before, according to which three candidates from each of the AAP and the saffron party were to be “elected” as members of the MCD’s standing committee.
The working president of the Delhi BJP, Virendra Sachdeva, claimed during a news conference that the re-election that Mayor Shelly Oberoi ordered to choose the six members of the standing committee was “undemocratic” and “unconstitutional.”
In response to the Delhi High Court’s ruling, Mayor Oberoi stated, “One vote in the election of February 24 was illegitimate, yet the BJP continued to claim that the vote was valid. This prevented the counting process from being finished.
“The expert’s declaration of the result was also invalid because they were supposed to help me, not pronounce the outcome. According to the Act, only the presiding officer may announce the outcome after form 4 has been completed. Since I didn’t complete any forms, no one else was supposed to reveal the outcome. I visited the police and filed three FIRs,” Shelly Oberoi continued.
The Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi said earlier on Friday that the elections for the same will be place on February 22 and added that the house will stay adjourned until then. This came hours after the municipal House was rocked by new altercations between the councillors of the BJP and the AAP.
