IMPORTANT POINTS
By 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India, the Parliament did not intend elimination of the political parties from the fray of elections to the panchayats and the Municipalities and there is also no indication at all in the said provisions.

JUDGMENT :

1. The captioned public interest writ petition is filed by a practising advocate of this Court and stated to be a social activist and presently the Chairman of a voluntary movement called Voters’ Alliance constituted in 2016, with the objective of applying the organised power of voters to re-establish value based politics which is a valuable right of the voters. The contentions put forth by the petitioner are founded on the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India dealing with the Panchayats and the Municipalities, which inserted Part 1X and 1XA in the constitution of India. The thrust of the contention advanced is that, by incorporating the Panchayats as well as Municipalities in the Constitution of India, the Parliament intended to give absolute power and freedom to the Panchayats and the Municipalities to carry on with the activities without juncture of the formalities and the prescriptions contained under any of the statutes and therefore, the State Government was duty bound to make necessary rules and scheme to provide symbol to the candidates contesting the elections of the Local Self Government Institutions in the State of Kerala, without relying upon any order/rules of the Government of India in the matter of allocation of symbols to organised political parties and allocate symbols de horse the restrictions contained there under.

2. The material aspects put forth by the petitioner are that, a programme of action to persuade and compel the leadership of political parties to put up persons with integrity and character and who are not corrupt as candidates in elections to the Local Self Government Institutions; a programme of action to persuade the government to fulfil the promises that were incorporated in the election manifesto of the political front which is voted to power and a programme to raise the voice of the voters and to build public opinion demanding the Parliament to suitably amend the Representation of People Act, 1951 to bring about reforms in the election process with a view to have inexpensive and model elections to the Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies.

3. According to the petitioner, the first two programmes specified above have started yielding results and the 3rd programme of action is pursued on a long term basis. With the aforesaid facts, petitioner seeks to quash Such of the provisions of the Kerala Panchayat Raj (conduct of elections) Rules, 1995 and the Kerala Municipality (conduct of elections) Rules, 1995, hereafter discussed, promulgated by the State of Kerala under the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994, since according to the petitioner, such provisions are ultra-vires the provisions of the enabling principle statutes and also opposed to the intention of the Parliament in effecting the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments based on which the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 were enacted. The predominant contention of the petitioner is that those amendments were intended to confer constitutional status to the Local Self Government Institutions and to remove certain defects or failures of the local authorities. In order to drive home the said point, the significant contentions advanced by the petitioner are as follows.

4. That the objects and reasons of the 73rd and 74th amendment of the constitution indicate that; though the Panchayat Raj Institutions have been in existence for a long time, it has been observed that these institutions have not been able to acquire the status and dignity of viable and responsive peoples’ bodies due to a number of reasons including absence of regular elections, prolonged super-sessions, insufficient representation of weaker sections like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, inadequate devolution of powers and lack of financial resources.

5. Article 40 of the Constitution which enshrines one of the directive principles of state policy lays down that the s