Delhi Congress Chief challenges notification in regards to delimitation of Municipal wards

NEW DELHI, (ANI): A petition has been moved in the Delhi High Court by Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) President Chaudhary Anil Kumar on Thursday challenging the notification issued in regard to the delimitation of Municipal wards in the national capital.

The plea states that the notification dated October 17, 2022, whereby the Centre Government in an arbitrary manner 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 sensex of 2011 and natural boundaries.

Plea alleges that the formula adopted by the Respondents for the delimitation of wards is wholly arbitrary, irrational, unintelligible, confusing and suffered from various legal infirmities. It states that the report on delimitation was prepared by the Delimitation committee in complete haste without considering the relevant factors.

The Petition filed through Advocates Vikas Yadav, Sajid Chaudhary and Gaurav Dua seeks 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 and the average population of each ward that each ward has an equal population as per 2011 plus/minus ten per cent.

The plea states that the very purpose of conducting delimitation is to ascertain an equal number of divisions of the electorates in the various wards. The same has been based on the population figures 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 states that the Respondents in the 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, the 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 on 5th 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)