Other States - Orissa

HC adjourns hearing on Cuttack civic polls

CUTTACK: Uncertainty over holding elections to form new Council of Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) still continues even as the tenure of last Council ended three months ago.

Meanwhile, the High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of the cases pertaining to CMC polls to January 12 next. The adjournment came following a request made by the State Election Commission (SEC) seeking a week’s time as it was planning to move a special leave petition (SLP) in Supreme Court.

The Commission counsel Pitamber Acharya told The Hindu on Monday evening from New Delhi that the SLP has already been filed in the Apex Court.

“We have challenged the orders of the High Court which we view are stalling the election process violating the provisions of Article 243 Z (G) of the Constitution”, Acharya said.

The HC, while adjudicating over a batch of petitions that have challenged the impugned notification of the State government over the arbitrary “delimitation” and “reservation” of seats in CMC, had put a stay on election process and had directed the SEC not to take any step towards the civic polls of the city until the petitions are disposed off.

It may be mentioned here that the earlier 48 wards of the Council had been bifurcated into 54 wards after delimitation and the seats were reserved as per the rotation basis.

But it was alleged that there were irregularities in as many as 38 newly formed wards .

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