Govt. will take a call on holding gram sabha meets on Jan. 26: AAG

The Madras High Court was on Friday knowledgeable that the State authorities would take an acceptable resolution on the conduct of gram sabha conferences throughout the State on January 26 in accordance with the Tamil Nadu Grama Sabha (Quorum and Procedure for Convening and Conducting of Meetings) Rules of 1998.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy took word of the submission made by Additional Advocate General (AAG) S.R. Rajagopal, and adjourned by three weeks the writ petitions filed by the DMK and Makkal Needhi Maiam.

The petitions had been filed final 12 months when the gram sabha conferences scheduled to be held on October 2 had been cancelled, citing the specter of COVID-19.

Claiming that the conferences had been important for native governance, the 2 events had approached the court docket, looking for a route to the federal government to conduct the conferences.

Appearing on behalf of the State, the AAG sought two weeks extra to file a counter affidavit. However, advocate Vijayan Subramanian, who was representing the MNM, insisted on listening to the case earlier than January 26 and feared that the federal government may not permit the gram sabha to be performed even on the Republic Day as mandated below the foundations.

Though the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act of 1994 requires gram sabha conferences to be performed at the least twice a 12 months, the manager directions issued by the federal government state that they might be performed on January 26, May 1, August 15 and October 2. Therefore, the federal government was duty-bound to conduct the meet on Thursday, he mentioned. In reply, the AAG mentioned the federal government would take an acceptable call on the difficulty.