New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said
that it will not stay the poll for trifurcated MCD and asked
the councillors to make a brief submission jointly in support
of their plea seeking quashing of a notification by the state
election commission reserving seats for SC candidates.
"We are not going to stall the election and we cannot
hear lengthy arguments by all of you as we have to pen down
the judgement also," a bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul
and Rajiv Shakdher said.
The court, which was hearing a bunch of petitions filed
by various councillors of ruling BJP and Congress party, asked
the lawyers to file a "common" and brief synopsis in support
of their pleas.
"You all sit down together and file a common and brief
synopsis in support of your case. We will give an hour
tomorrow to sum up the arguments," the court said.
A battery of senior lawyers including M N Krishnamani and
Rakesh Tikku, appearing for the councillors, started arguing
simultaneously which irked the court.
"The faulty method of earmarking seats for SC/ST
candidates has led to a situation where a ward, having 40 per
cent population of SCs, has been left out and a ward, having
16 per cent SCs, has been declared a reserved seat," one of
the lawyers contended.
Earlier, the court had issued a notice on a plea of a
Congress councillor and had sought a response from the State
Election Commission on his plea.
Later, others too approached the court seeking quashing of
the notification for upcoming civic polls.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 21:00