India News | Delhi HC Notice to Centre on Plea Challenging Notification in Regards to Delimitation of Municipal Wards

New Delhi [India], October 28 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to the central government and other respondents on a plea moved by the Delhi Congress President Chaudhary Anil Kumar challenging the notification issued in regard to the delimitation of municipal wards in Delhi.

The bench of Justice Satish Chander Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad on Friday sought responses from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Delimitation Committee and the Government of NCT Delhi and fixed the hearing for December 14, 2022.

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Senior advocate Salman Khurshid appeared for the petitioner and submitted that he made a representation, the decision was taken but he doesn't know which issues were dealt with and which weren't.

A petition was moved by Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President Chaudhary Anil Kumar stating that the notification dated October 17 by the Centre in an arbitrary manner.

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The plea stated that the decision taken by respondents without consideration of the significant factors/issues and application of its mind determined 250 wards within the Municipal Corporation of Delhi completely ignoring the ratio of area population and without dividing them in equal proportion as per the population of Delhi according to the last population census of 2011 and natural boundaries.

The plea alleged that the formula adopted by the Respondents for the delimitation ofwards is wholly arbitrary, irrational, unintelligible, confusing and suffered from various legal infirmities. It states that the delimitation report was prepared by the Delimitation committee in haste without considering the relevant factors.

The petition was filed through advocates Vikas Yadav, Sajid Chaudhary and Gaurav Dua seeking issuance of direction to the respondents to make fresh delimitation of the wards as per the formula prescribed for the delimitation of the wards divided by the total number of wards so that the average population of each ward is equal as of 2011 plus/minus 10 per cent.

The plea further stated that the very purpose of conducting delimitation is to ascertainan equal number of divisions of the electorate in the various wards and the same has been based on the population figures as obtained from the most recent Census. However, by the promulgation of the impugned order, this very purpose behind delimitation has become redundant, as in the final draft order the notified 250 wards are not having an equal number of electorates.

It also stated that the Respondents in final draft order have turned many localities into isolated islands, as they are physically within some wards but in delimitation they have been shown inside a ward which is many kilometres away. The Respondents in the final draft order have pushed the disadvantaged wards of the lower income group further into the dark by increasing their population sizes, whereas elite and richer wards have been handpicked for smaller population sizes, plea read.

The Central Government decided to unify the three civic bodies in the National Capital and also conduct a delimitation process to decrease the number of wards. A Bill to unify the three civic bodies was approved by the Lok Sabha on 30th March 2022 and by the Rajya Sabha on5th April 2022.

The Bill became an Act after the President of India gave his assent to the said Bill on 18th April 2022. The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022 reduced the number of wards in the National Capital to 250 from the existing 272. (ANI)

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