SC puts Punjab on notice over delimitation of Mohali wards

Former SAD councillors Sukhdev Singh Patwari and Bachan Singh had contended that the delimitation of wards was not done as per rules and many wards were divided and merged arbitrarily by the municipal corporation

The Supreme Court on Thursday put the Punjab government on notice over delimitation of wards in Mohali and sought a response within two weeks.

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The top court was acting on a petition by former SAD councillors Sukhdev Singh Patwari and Bachan Singh, who had contended that the delimitation of wards was not done as per rules and many wards were divided and merged arbitrarily by the municipal corporation (MC).

The SC division bench of Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, justice AS Bopanna and justice V Ramasubramanian, while hearing the petition challenging the dismissal orders of the Punjab and Haryana high court, told the Punjab local bodies department to file its reply.

The delimitation report was submitted to the Punjab government on October 29 last year, following which the government notified MC elections to be held for 50 wards in February 2020. The five-year term of the MC House had ended on April 26, 2020.

The report invited resentment from the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiromani Akali Dal councillors, who claimed the delimitation had been done to oust them from MC.

The report was prepared by a committee comprising only Congress councillors, they alleged, who had recommended 70% of the SAD-BJP wards and only 10% of Congress wards for delimitation. Therefore, most of the wards held by SAD and BJP councillors had been displaced.

Mohali got a municipal council in 1984, which was upgraded to a corporation through a notification in January 2011. However, the elections were held after four years in 2015.