Delhi civic polls: SC dismisses plea seeking stay on elections as 'infructuous'

The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday dismissed a petition seeking a stay on the municipal elections as infructuous.

“The elections are on Sunday. Passage of time has made the petition infructuous,” observed a bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka as it dismissed a petition filed by the National Youth Party seeking a stay of the elections.

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The petition questioned the delimitation of the wards of the MCD from the previous 272 to now 250. The party had previously on November 9 failed to get a stay on the elections from the Delhi high court (HC).

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Although the HC had issued notice on the petition, it refrained from putting a stay on the elections as the election process for MCD had already been kickstarted by the state election commission.

The petition sought to question the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act 2022 that altered the total number of wards in the city from existing 272 to 250. By the amendment, the existing three municipal bodies of north, south and east were merged into one.