Shimla: With the political heat rising and finances under strain, the Himachal Pradesh government has knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court’s January 9 order directing Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) elections to be held by April 30. The move has pushed the already contentious panchayat polls into a fresh legal and political battlefield.
The Congress-led Sukhu government has sought a stay on the High Court ruling and asked the apex court to allow more time. It has argued that key issues, especially the reservation roster and legal clarity, remain unresolved.
The BJP, however, has seized on the High Court order, accusing the government of deliberately delaying grassroots democracy.
State Advocate General Anup Rattan said contradictory views have emerged from different High Court benches on how objections to the reservation roster should be handled.
He pointed out that while the January 9 bench allowed just four days after issuing the roster, a 2021 division bench in the Manish Dharamkhand case had granted three months for hearing objections.
According to the government, this inconsistency needs authoritative interpretation.
Another core issue flagged by the state is the Disaster Management Act. The government has sought clarity on whether elections to PRIs can be deferred temporarily during a disaster situation. It has argued that the Disaster Management Act is a central law, while the Panchayati Raj Act is a state law, and the interplay between the two must be clearly settled by the Supreme Court.
The government has maintained that it has no intention of postponing elections indefinitely. The tenure of PRIs ended on January 31, and the Panchayati Raj Act mandates fresh elections within six months.
Still, critics point out that moving the Supreme Court at this stage has effectively stalled the election clock.
The High Court, in its January 9 verdict, had taken a tough line. A division bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Ramesh Verma directed the state government and the State Election Commission to ensure that PRI elections are completed by April 30.
The court had rejected the government’s reliance on the Disaster Management Act, holding that constitutional mandates under Article 243-E cannot be overridden by executive orders issued during disasters.
The bench had underlined that the State Election Commission is an independent constitutional authority and that the Constitution remains supreme. It had also made it clear that delays in delimitation cannot be an excuse.
Where fresh delimitation is incomplete, elections can be held on the basis of the 2011 Census and the previous delimitation, the court said.
In sharp observations, the High Court had accused the government of using disasters, administrative reasons, board examinations, census work and even the monsoon as recurring excuses to delay elections.
Petitioners had pointedly argued that if the government could celebrate three years in power with public events, it could certainly conduct panchayat elections.
The State Election Commission, for its part, told the High Court that it was fully prepared to conduct elections and had issued repeated instructions to deputy commissioners. The only pending issue, it said, was the finalisation of the reservation roster by the government.
Now, with the matter before the Supreme Court, the fate of panchayat elections hangs in balance.
What was meant to be a routine democratic exercise has turned into a high-stakes legal showdown, with the ruling Congress seeking breathing space and the BJP projecting the delay as an assault on grassroots democracy.
The apex court’s decision will not just set the election timeline, but also define how far governments can go in citing disasters to pause the democratic process.
