By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court will Wednesday pronounce its verdict on petitions that seek quashing of the Election Commission’s decision to reserve seats for the Scheduled Castes candidates in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections slated for April.
A group of councillors belonging to both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress moved the court challenging the earmarking of seats as reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs).
A division bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Rajiv Shakdher on Feb 16 reserved the verdict after counsel from both sides concluded their arguments.
The petitioners contended that the poll commission’s notification reserving the seats was “arbitrary, malafide and without any logic” as the commission had reserved seats for the SCs on the basis of the 2001 census and not the recent 2011 census.
The Election Commission “acted without any logic” in reserving the seats on the basis of 2001 census – reserving those seats where the Scheduled Castes population was only 12 percent, and making those as general seats where the SC population was more than 40 percent, they contended.
The Election Commission opposed the plea, saying that the rationale behind the reservation was to give due representation to the SC candidates.
The state poll panel issued the notification Jan 27.