The story so far: The Supreme Court on September 6 reprimanded the Lieutenant Governor’s administration of the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh for procrastinating in reserving the ‘plough’ as a party symbol for those candidates contesting on the National Conference’s (NC) tickets in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council-Kargil (LAHDC-K) elections. The double-bench of the SC set aside Ladakh’s earlier election polling date of September 10 and directed the UT administration to re-notify election dates. It observed that the NC reserved the right to be “entitled to the exclusive allotment of the ‘plough’ symbol for candidates proposed to be put up by it”. The SC, while dismissing the appeal of the Ladakh administration, put ‘costs of ₹1 lakh on it’ for wasting the court’s time. A fresh notification issued by the Ladakh administration has fixed October 4 as the new polling date.
Why did the SC reprimand them?
The SC came down hard on the L-G administration because of its failure to abide by two orders of the J&K High Court and Ladakh — first issued by a single bench on August 9 and the second by a double-bench on August 14 — allowing the NC to retain ‘plough’ as its party symbol in Ladakh. ‘Plough’ is already a registered party symbol of the NC with the Election Commission of India (ECI). The apex court hinted at a deliberate delay by the administration.
