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Journalism of Courage
CHANDIGARH, Aug 6: A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court consisting of Justices G.C Garg and K.S. Kumaran restrained the Punjab govt from issuing notification for holding the election to Patiala Municipal Corporation on a writ petition filed by Raj Kumar Malhotra, the senior vice- president of the district Congress committee of urban Patiala and Saranjit Singh Khurana, ex-municipal councilor from Patiala.
The petitioner in the writ petition challenged the notification regarding the delimitation of awards after the merger of the municipal council in the municipal corporation Patiala.
In the writ petition it was specifically averred that as per the provision of rule 8 of delimitation of awards of municipal corporation rules 1995, objections were called which were to be filed within 10 days, the petitioner submitted that the objections were filed within time, but without calling upon the petitioners, the respondent finalised the delimitation of awards in violation of the provision of the rules.
It was submitted by the counsel appearing for the state of Punjab that the objections of the petitioners had been decided, however, while passing the interim order the hon’ble bench on the request of the counsel for the state adjourned the matter enabling him to produce the record showing that the objections were disposed of by passing a speaking order and after affording opportunity to the objectors of being heard especially when it was positive case of the petitioners that they had not been provided any opportunity before passing any order on the objections and had shown the apprehension that their objections had not dealt with by the state of Punjab and the delimitation of awards had been done as per the wishes of the ruling party.
