ALKA GHALOT Vs. GOVT. OF NCT OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed by the petitioner praying for a direction to the respondents to remove the election symbols from the ballot paper, including the Electronic Voting Machine (in short, 'EVM'), for the election to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

(2.) The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is a institution of local self-governance under Article 243R of the Constitution of India, which states that all the seats in a Municipality shall be filled by persons chosen by direct election from the territorial constituencies in the Municipal area, and for this purpose, each Municipal area shall be divided into territorial constituencies to be known as Wards. The important object of the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments of the Constitution was to strengthen the grass-root democracy for local self-governance and decentralization at the rural and the urban level, respectively. The intention is to keep away the political parties from municipal governance. The presence of reserved symbols of recognized political parties on the ballot paper/EVM, therefore, undermines the object of local self-governance.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner further submits that the display of election symbols also gives an unfair advantage to the candidates of a political party as against those fighting independently, inasmuch as, a candidate not belonging to a recognised party is allotted a new election symbol just fifteen days prior to the poll. As the canvasing has to stop 48 hours before the poll, such a candidate has only 13 days to inform the voters of his election symbol. Whereas, the candidates of a recognized political party can popularise their symbol throughout the year.