Supreme Court to hear AAP's plea challenging postponement of MCD polls on July 28

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear on July 28 a plea filed by the Aam Aadmi Party challenging the postponement of Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) polls on grounds of delimitation of wards in the national capital. The matter came up for hearing before a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar which deferred it as a letter was circulated by the Centre seeking adjournment on grounds that the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was not available.

The bench, also comprising Justices A S Oka and J B Pardiwala, said the matter would be heard on Thursday.

On July 20, the apex court had granted liberty to the petitioner to serve the advance copy of the plea on the standing counsel for the respondents, including the central agency.


The AAP has made the Centre, the State Election Commission, and the MCD, through the special officer, respondents in the petition.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for the AAP, had last week told the bench that there were three municipal corporations in Delhi and their terms expired in mid of May this year.

He had said that the three MCDs have been unified but post-unification, the elections cannot be delayed.

The matter was earlier mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana, which had taken note of the plea of the counsel representing AAP that the unification of three MCDs and the consequential delimitation exercise cannot be a valid ground to defer the civic polls.

The announcement of the election schedule for the three Delhi civic bodies was deferred in March this year and later, the Centre brought a Bill for the unification of the MCDs.

The process relating to the delimitation of municipal wards is underway in Delhi.