Poll notification for 2 villages quashed

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court on Thursday cancelled the village panchayat elections schedule for two villages in Banaskantha, which split from one group panchayat earlier this year.
After last week’s notification by the state government to hold gram panchayat elections on December 27 across the state, the panchayat heads of two villages – Pethapur and Pataliya of the Danta block of Banaskantha district approached the HC. They claimed that their panchayats were not supposed to go to election because they had held elections just six months ago.
The petitioners’ advocate Dakshesh Mehta submitted that the group panchayat of Pethapur was split in two villages — Pethapur and Pataliya — in June this year and elections were held.According to the law, once the panchayat body was formed by elections, the term of such a body is five years. There is no reason to dissolve this body and hold fresh elections merely because elections have been declared for all other village panchayats. After hearing the case, the bench of Justice Harsha Devani and Justice A S Supehia quashed the notification for elections in these two villages. tnn