High Court vacates stay order, paves way for Gurugram municipal elections

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday vacated a stay order on Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) elections thus paving the way for the State Government to go ahead with the city municipal elections.

The case that was heard by the bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Shekhar Bhawan after the State Government submitted the final notification in the delineation of the city municipal wards. 

The court however also provided an option that the petitioners can challenge the final notification submitted by the State Government. The Court has set the next date of hearing on October 13.

The decision by the High Court now allows the government to go ahead with the MCG elections that have been pending for over a year.

Formed in 2008 to solve Gurugram's civic issues, the MCG elections held its first election in 2011.

After the term of the MCG councillors expired in May 2016 there was an announcement that the MCG elections will be held in March 2017.

Disagreement on the delineation of the wards, however, resulted in petitioners namely Bhoop Singh, Qutab Enclave Resident Welfare Association (QERWA), Zile Singh Numberdar and Jagmohan filing a petition at the High Court on February 6.

Hearing the case the High Court put a stay order on the March MCG elections.  

"We are disagreeing with the ward delineation. To suit the political interests the committee formed by the State Government adopted tactics like excluding old areas from a ward or addition of new areas. This was done to ensure that the councillor loses connect with his voters. Over 70 percent of the 35 wards have been wrongly delineated," said Gaurav Singla from QERWA, one of the petitioners.

 "We are not satisfied with the Court's verdict and we will be holding an important meeting with our stakeholders," Singla further added.

There was, however, no announcement by the government regarding the plan to announce the MCG elections.