HC to hear MCD election petition on Monday

New Delhi, Mar 8 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today said it would hear on Monday a petition which challenged the Single Bench order directing the state government to re-notify the report of the Delimitation Commission with newly demarcated reserved constituencies for the civic body election to be held on April five.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice M K Sarma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said the matter could not be heard on the basis of an interim order.

Justice B D Ahmed was yet to pronounce a detailed order on the petition filed by Minto Road Councillor Ramesh Dutta.

Ashok Jindal of Madanpuri has filed the petition challenging the interim order of the Single Bench, saying it would not redress the grievances of the public.

On March 6, the High Court directed the state government to notify afresh the report of the Delimitation Commission with newly demarcated reserved constituencies for the civic body election.

In an interim order Justice B D Ahmed said, ''Since the election to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to be held on April 5, 2007, it is directed that the fresh proposed notification based on the proposed draft resolution of allottment of seats is issued by March 10.'' Out of the 272 wards, 46 would be reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and rest for general people with one third for the women, said the three-page interim order.

''To ensure that the seats reserved for SC are not concentrated in one region and are equally spread to the extent possible, throughout the area under the MCD jurisdiction, not more than two wards in an assembly segment shall be reserved for the representative from the community,'' said the order.

Only 15 assembly constituencies would have two seats reserved for the SC candidates and rest would have only one each at the maximum.

Every third seat from among the 226 unresearved seats would be reserved for women. The 75th seat for women would go to ward no 271- Karawal Nagar(West) and 76th to Sonia Vihar(ward no 272).

''There is no necessity of rotating the SC seats in future, but the Central Government was at liberty to do so,'' said the order.

UNI