3000 Panchayat officials elected without opposition, strange incident: Supreme

New Delhi: More than 3,000 out of 13,000 panchayat officials were elected without any opposition in the recently held Local Swaraj elections in Punjab. The Supreme Court expressed surprise about this. It also said that candidates whose nomination papers have been rejected or torn can appeal to the Punjab-Haryana High Court.

In this entire matter, the bench of Supreme Court Chief Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar had earlier issued notice. The bench said that the aggrieved person can apply before the election tribunal. The tribunal will have to dispose of the case within six months. Candidates whose nomination papers have been rejected or torn can approach the High Court. The application of such candidates cannot be rejected merely on the ground that they have applied late. The applications will have to be disposed of on the basis of merits only, if these applications are rejected then they can challenge it in the Supreme Court.

During the hearing, when the Supreme Court was told that 3000 candidates out of more than 13000 Panchayat posts have been elected unopposed, the Chief Justice expressed surprise and said that this is very strange, I have never seen such figures before. This is a huge number, such a large number of people have been elected without opposition. A lawyer claimed that the election symbol of a candidate was removed during the elections. The elections were held on October 15 in which the candidates had approached the Supreme Court alleging irregularities.