Allahabad HC Is Raising Issues With UP Panchayat Polls When Court Itself Gave 30 April Deadline And Saw 'No Merit' In PIL To Postpone Elections

The Allahabad High Court is taking the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government by the collar for conducting the state Panchayat polls amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The court said that the Election Commission and the government "failed to fathom the disastrous consequences" of permitting elections in a few states and the panchayat election in Uttar Pradesh.

On 7 May, Court had put on record based on the State Election Commission’s response that there had been 77 suspected COVID-19 deaths of polling officials from 28 districts.

Media reports had stated that some 135 polling officials, mainly teachers and social workers, had died from COVID-19 ostensibly contracted while discharging their election duties.

The comments of the court come in the backdrop of several such comments made by the judiciary.

Earlier this month, Madras High Court said that the ECI officials should be “put on murder charges” for failing to stop political parties from wanton abuse of the COVID-19 protocol.

On 12 May, Allahabad High Court stated that the Rs 30,00,000 compensation offered by UP government for polling officers, who died due to COVID-19 during Panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh, was insufficient. It must at least be to the tune of Rs one crore, ruled the court.

However, it can be argued that the Allahabad High Court itself shares some responsibility in the case of UP Panchayat polls.

The five-year term of Uttar Pradesh gram panchayats and village panchayat heads expired on 25 December 2020. The elections were due in December 2020 itself but were delayed because of the ongoing pandemic.

In an order dated 4 February, the court had ordered the government to conduct the Panchayat polls by 30 April. The bench of justices Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Rohit Ranjan Agarwal rejected the state election commission’s undertaking to hold the rural civic body elections by May 2021.

In the same judgement, the court had noted that many states like Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh had obtained extensions on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A fresh PIL was filed in April when the cases were rising to postpone the polls. However, the High Court saw no merit in it.

“As per the petitioner, looking at the massive surge in coronavirus infection in different parts of the state, it would be against the public interest to hold panchayat elections in rural areas. According to the petitioner, the elections would be causing enormous injury to the health of the public at large and that would be in contravention to Article 21 of the Constitution of India. We do not find any merit in the argument advanced. The state while notifying elections in panchayat raj institutions has already declared a protocol to be adhered during the election campaign.” [Emphasis added]

The four-phase panchayat elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh started from 15 April.

The UP government has also blamed the High Court order, saying that the state government did not want to conduct panchayat elections in 2021, but its hands were tied by the orders of the High Court.

A statement from the UP government stated:

“The decision to conduct the elections of the Gram Panchayats stemmed from the directions of the Allahabad High Court to the Government of the State of Uttar Pradesh. It was in the compliance of the High Court's order that the UP government had to go through Panchayat polls despite COVID scare.”

One concern could have been regarding the 15th Finance Commission grants. Uttar Pradesh PRIs received significant amount from the kitty. The rules, however, state that grants should be given to functional, duly elected panchayats.

However, legal precedents exist that allow limited disbursal for urgent upkeep requirements and then compensating later through arrears.

The High Court order regarding Panchayat polls is especially befuddling as the Constitution offers a lot more flexibility over them as compared to assembly or parliamentary elections.