Panaji: The Bombay high court on Tuesday declined relief to a sitting CCP corporator, Nelson Cabral, who sought to file his nomination for the March 11 elections. Tuesday was the last date to file nominations.Cabral went to court stating that his ward 1 was hurriedly reserved for ST women by shifting 447 ST voters from ward 2 on the eve of the elections.He alleged that the delimitation exercise was carried out at the instance of a politician, his rival, to prevent him from contesting the CCP elections.Advocate general Devidas Pangam said it was not true that the delimitation was carried out surreptitiously and without issuing prior notice. He said a public notice was issued on Jan 20, informing the public about the delimitation exercise and inviting objections, but no objections were received from anyone, including Cabral.Pangam said that the delimitation exercise was a continuous process undertaken by state govt as well as the State Election Commission in the build-up to every election, and such a process was permissible under the law.The division bench comprising Justices Suman Shyam and Amit Jamsandekar said that the HC could not grant relief by permitting Cabral to file his nomination on the last date, as it was incumbent upon him to raise an objection after the public notice or at least approach the HC seeking an order well ahead of the elections. “However, the petitioner failed to do so, and there was no reasonable explanation for the same,” the court said.It added that there was no violation of any statutory provisions relating to issuing the two notifications for delimitation and reservation of wards issued on Feb 2 and 10, respectively.“On the contrary, it appears that these notifications were issued by the authorities in exercise of their statutory powers. Thirdly, after the election schedule was notified, permitting the petitioner to submit a nomination would amount to interference with the election process, which would be contrary to the letter and spirit of Article 243ZG,” the court said. It added that granting any other interim order at this stage would stall the election process with regard to ward 1, which would also be hit by Article 243ZG.HC further said that allegations of political rivalry could not be taken note of, as the person concerned was not made a party to the petition.
