Greater Chennai Corporation can’t allot over 50% wards for women: Madras High Court
According to sources, the Madras High Court on Tuesday struck down reservation for women over and above the 50 per cent cap in the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) elections. The first bench of the Madras High Court of Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice P.D. Adikesavalu struck down the order while hearing a petition by Advocate R. Parthiban, challenging the validity of the government order.
R. Parthiban of West Mambalam had filed the petition contending that the legal provisions, relating to reservation for women candidates in the urban local bodies, originally provided for only one-third of the seats to be reserved for them. However, in 2016, the laws were amended to the effect that not less than 50% of the seats should be reserved for women in the elections to the post of ward councillor.
Pratibhan has contended that the phrase “not less than 50%” should not be construed to mean that reservation for women could be provided even beyond 50%, the petitioner said it would amount to discrimination against male candidates. Pratibhan has been further submitted that 89 seats had been reserved for women (general), 16 for the Scheduled Castes (women) and 16 for the Scheduled Castes (general). The rest of the 79 wards alone had been left open for male candidates from the general category.
The Division Bench agreed with the petitioner, that reservation on the basis of zones had led to the overall quota having crossed the permissible limit of 50%. The Court held that such a procedure could not be adopted with respect to the GCC alone when the reservation for women was being done only on the basis of the total number of seats in the Corporations of Coimbatore, Madurai and other cities.
The court observed that the object projected by the respondents is not within the framework of the Constitution that provides for reservation based on the total population of each category in a Municipal area in nearly the same proportion to the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in that Municipality.
The Bench thus termed the notification as unconstitutional, and directed Tamil Nadu State Election Commission to conduct elections in accordance with Article 243 T of the Constitution of India since the amendment to provide 50 per cent reservation for women was not challenged by the petitioner in this writ petition. .
R. Parthiban v. The Chief Secretary & Ors.