Doubts within South MCD over panel meets as tenure nears end

New Delhi: With the tenures of councillors in councillors coming to an end around May 18 and the announcement of fresh municipal elections delayed due to the unification of the three corporations, the law department of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has questioned if the civic body can hold any more house meetings and pass proposals, pointing out that rules mandate electing a mayor and a deputy mayor for the civic body at the first meeting of the financial year before commencing any official work.

The elected councillors have, however, said that the unification of the three MCDs has presented an extraordinary circumstance, adding that the civic functions should continue as normal till there is a clarity on the way forward for the civic bodies.

The Lok Sabha passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to reunify the Capital’s three municipal corporations, on Wednesday. The legislation was introduced weeks before elections to the Capital’s three civic bodies were set to be held in April. These polls will now be pushed back since the law proposes to redraw municipality wards and cut the number of council seats to 250, a process that could take months.

On Thursday, the SDMC standing committee held a meeting and cleared key proposals and policy decisions. At the meeting, the law department cited the existing provisions of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, to object to any more such meetings. “The section 35 of the DMC act states that the corporation will, at its first meeting in each year, elect one of its members to be the chairperson to be known as the mayor and another member to be the deputy mayor of the corporation. Since the new financial year has started, such meetings cannot continue,” a law official informed the committee.

The municipal corporations, during its five-year term, witnesses five mayoral and deputy mayoral elections, which are to be held at the first meeting of the financial year.Currently, Mukesh Suryan is the mayor and Pawan Sharma is the deputy mayor of SDMC.

A senior municipal official told HT that in a normal year, the model code of conduct (MCC) would have already been in place by now, preventing meetings where policy decisions cannot be held. “Due to the extraordinary circumstances when re-unification of corporations are being held, we have now entered a grey area legally. A decision and clarification will be issued in a couple of days,” the official said.

The standing committee chairman Col (retired) BK Oberoi, however, said the provision of no meetings would make sense in normal circumstances when elections would have already been declared. “But till May 18, we are the councillors and nothing has changed. While the new financial year has started, the standing committees and mayors would remain in the same state. In our opinion, a special officer would be appointed after May 18 and take over the administration. Till then, two more meetings can be held,” the chairman said.

Confirming that the chief law officer gave his opinion that no more meetings can be held, leader of the house Inderjeet Sehrawat said the matter will be resolved next week. “After April 1, the new financial year starts and the DMC Act states that new appointments need to be made. So the same people will have to be re-nominated by the party. The law department has stated that meetings of the same functionaries cannot be held beyond March 31 but a more detailed clarification will be issued in the coming days to settle the matter,” Sehrawat said.

HT tried to reach out to the chief law officer but he refused to comment.

“The MCD bill for unification of three bodies has been cleared by Lok Sabha and it is expected to be taken up by Rajya Sabha early next week. Once the bill is cleared by both houses and notified by the President, the special administrator will take over the role of corporation unless some special provisions are made in the notification,” a senior corporation official from municipal secretariat stated.