Today, On 1st December, The Supreme Court said there should be no further impediment in holding the polls and refused to entertain the plea challenging Maharashtra’s local body delimitation. The Court made it clear that the election process must move ahead without any additional delays.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the legitimacy of the current delimitation exercise for zilla parishads, panchayat samitis, and other local bodies in Maharashtra.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi stated that elections must proceed according to the pre-established timelines.
The bench declared,
“We are not going to entertain any plea that could delay the polls. All these petitions seem to be a ploy to delay the polls. The elections have to happen by January 31, as we directed earlier. There cannot be any further impediment in the conduct of polls,”
The court emphasized its commitment to supporting the State Election Commission’s (SEC) schedule. It noted that once the SEC has announced a timetable and the Supreme Court has issued clear directives, it will not “step in to disrupt or derail the timetable.”
It reiterated,
“We are not going to entertain any petition that could delay the polls,”
This decision came while dismissing a petition from Nikhil K. Kolekar, who challenged the SEC’s choice to assign the approval of final delimitation proposals to divisional commissioners.
The petitioner argued that allowing this delegation was unlawful since territorial divisions should be exclusively approved by the SEC, claiming that transferring this authority to state officers amounted to neglecting constitutional duties and compromised the integrity of the delimitation process.
However, the bench was not swayed by these arguments.
The Supreme Court pointed out that the petitioner had not contested the original communications that empowered divisional commissioners to undertake delimitation as established by the SEC and state government, referring to the Bombay High Court’s judgment from September 30, which found no illegality in the delimitation decisions for Kolhapur, Satara, and Sangli.
While rejecting the plea, the Supreme Court indicated that the broader legal question of whether such delegation is permissible could be examined in future cases.
This order is part of an ongoing effort to complete long-delayed elections. Just days prior, on November 28, the same bench had permitted elections for over 280 municipal councils and nagar panchayats scheduled for December 2.
In that instance, the court allowed the polls to take place while stipulating that results from 40 municipal councils and 17 nagar panchayats, where combined SC/ST/OBC reservations exceed 50%, will be subject to final court orders.
It also permitted the SEC to advance with elections for 336 panchayat samiti seats and 32 zilla parishad seats where the process was yet to commence, as long as the reservation limits remained within constitutional constraints.
The bench acknowledged ongoing disputes regarding OBC reservations specifically challenges to the Banthia Commission report but stressed that local self-governance should not be hindered due to unresolved litigation.
Petitions regarding the validity of the Banthia Commission’s findings and the 27% OBC quota in local bodies are scheduled for a detailed hearing before a three-judge bench on January 21.
Local body elections in Maharashtra have been stalled since 2022 due to various disputes over reservations and delimitation processes.
In September, the Supreme Court mandated that all local body elections in the state be completed by January 31, 2026. The latest order reasserts that no new challenges will be tolerated to obstruct or delay the electoral process.
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