Reservation of wards for Chandigarh MC poll: Punjab and Haryana High Court dismisses plea

Chandigarh, November 23

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today dismissed a petition claiming that Chandigarh’s present population was not considered while determining the wards for the reserved category in the forthcoming Municipal Corporation elections.

The submission was made by Dhanas resident Prem Pal in an application filed through senior counsel Gaurav Chopra with advocate Anurag Chopra. He was seeking directions for being impleaded as a party to the ongoing proceedings initiated by Shiv Kumar against the Chief Electoral Officer and other respondents.

Appearing before the Bench of Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Karamjit Singh, Gaurav and Anurag Chopra submitted that the applicant, a resident of Dhanas Housing Complex, was aggrieved by a notification whereby his place of habilitation was excluded from being a reserved ward for the Schedule Caste category. He added the population as of today was not considered while “determining the selection of ward towards the reserved category”.

The Bench was also told that the minutes of the meeting dated December 4, 2020, on the delimitation of wards duly laid emphasis on the fact that the latest population data based in the electoral roll would be taken into account for reference for the areas where population dynamics had considerably changed due to the shifting of colonies, which was not reflected in the census data. — TNS