Punjab and Haryana HC Permits Haryana to Hold Panchayat Elections

On Wednesday, Punjab and Haryana Court permitted the Haryana government to hold elections for the Panchayati Raj Institutions. Advocate Deep Karan, who is representing one of the petitioners, said “the high court has given permission to the Haryana state government to conduct the Panchayati Raj elections. The elections will be subject to the outcome of some writ petitions and all these petitions will be heard in the due course of time”. He said the division bench comprising Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Arun Palli gave the order after accepting the state’s plea to permit it to hold these polls which were getting delayed.

The matter pertaining to the panchayat polls in Haryana was pending before the high court where multiple petitions have been filed challenging some amendments made by the state government in the Panchayati Raj Act. Karan said the state’s plea was that its amendments are constitutional and it is permitted to conduct the polls and the hearing in the case can go on.

Notably, the term of the village panchayats in Haryana state ended on 23rd February 2021. Opposition parties in Haryana claimed that development work in the villages had been hampered on account of delay in holding the panchayat polls, with the Congress targeting the BJP-JJP government, accusing it of not conducting the elections.

The Haryana government has appointed officials of the development and panchayat department as administrators to run the panchayat works.