HC restrains SEC from holding Keonjhar civic body polls

The Orissa High Court today restrained the State Election Commission (SEC) from filling up the posts of Councillors in Keonjhargada Municipal Council arising out of a disqualification order passed by the SEC last month.
At least nine former BJD councillors of the civic body were disqualified by the SEC on February 19 as they defied the party whip and voted for the no-confidence motion moved against the Chairperson of the civic body in December last year.
Adjudicating over a writ petition filed by the nine disqualified councillors, Justice S K Mishra ordered the respondents, including the SEC, not to go ahead with the exercise of filling up the vacancies until further orders.

Elected on BJD tickets, Sushree Sangita Nanda, Dileep Kumar Behera, Sunil Kumar Nayak, Kuna Nayak, Swarnalata Sahu, Prabhati Patnaik, Kumudini Nayak, Shatrughna Nayak and Sabita Sethy had defied the BJD whip and voted against the civic body Chairperson Meena Majhi after resigning from the party in the 21-member council.
However, on a petition filed by BJD, the SEC had disqualified the elections of these nine councillors invoking the provision of a freshly-amended anti-defection law.
Contesting the SEC action, the councillors had approached the High Court stating that the SEC order of disqualification was bad in the eyes of law as they had already resigned from the party before the anti-defection law was amended.