Special officers appointment in TN violates Constitution: PIL

A PIL plea in the Madras High Court has challenged the appointment of special officers and the extension of their tenure in local bodies in Tamil Nadu as violative of the Constitution.
According to the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, there was no provision for special officers at all, especially when the tenure of an elected local body had come to an end, Change India, represented by its director A Narayanan, said in its plea.
The First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar after hearing arguments on the plea, directed the Tamil Nadu government, the State Election Commission (SEC) and the DMK to file their counter affidavits.

After the local body polls scheduled for October 17 and 19 last year were cancelled by the Madras High Court, special officers were appointed to administer them since the tenure of elected representatives had ended.
Subsequently, their tenure were extended till June 30 by the state government.
On October 4, last year, a single judge had cancelled the election notification for local bodies due to non-compliance with the Tamil Nadu Panchayat (Elections) Rules, 1995.

The court had directed completion of the poll process by December 31, 2016 after complying with norms including those related to reservation for Scheduled Tribes.
The SEC preferred an appeal on the matter.

In its PIL plea, the NGO said the government and the SEC failed to undertake course correction and pursue legal steps to clear the judicial stay on the conduct of elections.
To hide its failure, inefficiency and "dereliction of constitutional duty," the appointment of Special officers were illegally extended, the petitioner contended.
Failure to conduct the elections before the expiry of the term of the elected local bodies, appointment and extension of Special Officers to govern them went against the judgement of the Constitution bench of Supreme Court, the plea said.
Noting that the grants can be utilised only by 'duly elected local bodies' and not by the 'special officers' the petitioner said the second instalment of the 14th Finance Commission got through in the absence of stipulated elected bodies.

"Already, the second instalment of the 14th finance commission was completed in the absence of the elected local bodies, without discussion in duly constituted gram sabhas, which is an unacceptable violation of constitutional mandate provided under Article 243-I and Article 243-Y."
The court has posted the matter for further hearing on June 30.