Jodhpur:<\/strong> The Rajasthan High Court has refused to interfere with the reservation lottery for the upcoming municipal elections, holding that once the State Election Commission announces the election programme, the election process begins and courts cannot intervene in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand dismissed petitions challenging the fresh lottery and re-lottery for reserved seats in municipalities including Sanchore, Bilara and Bikaner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The petitioners claimed that the authorities changed the earlier reservation arrangement without notice and did not follow population-based reservation. They argued that the election process had not started when the changes were made and, therefore, the High Court could examine the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The State opposed the petitions, pointing to Article 243-ZG of the Constitution, which bars courts from interfering in municipal elections once the election process has commenced. The State Election Commission had already announced the election programme on August 19, 2026, covering 309 municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The High Court noted that the election schedule had fixed the dates for filing nominations, withdrawal, polling and declaration of results, with the election process scheduled to run from August 27 to September 29, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Relying on the Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court in N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, the Court held that election-related disputes should not be allowed to interrupt the election process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court also referred to Mohinder Singh Gill and the Supreme Court’s ruling on judicial discipline in Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community, observing that a Constitution Bench decision would prevail over a later decision of a smaller Bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court specifically rejected the petitioners’ reliance on the Supreme Court’s decision in Union Territory of Ladakh v. Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, noting that it was delivered by a two-Judge Bench, whereas N.P. Ponnuswami was decided by a larger Constitution Bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court therefore held that the election process had already commenced and Article 243-ZG barred judicial interference. The petitions were accordingly dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once Election Schedule Is Announced, Courts Cannot Interfere, Says Rajasthan High Court. Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court has refused to interfere with the reservation lottery for the upcoming municipal elections, holding that once the State Election Commission announces the election programme, the election process begins and courts cannot intervene in it. Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69],"tags":[2319,1959,2321,2263,2314,2317,2320,471,48,2324,312,2316,659,43,2315,2322,2318,2323,314,32],"class_list":["post-9443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-rajasthan-high-court","tag-article-243-zg","tag-bikaner","tag-bilara","tag-election-dispute","tag-election-process","tag-election-schedule","tag-judicial-interference","tag-justice-anoop-kumar-dhand","tag-legal-news","tag-mohinder-singh-gill","tag-municipal-elections","tag-n-p-ponnuswami","tag-rajasthan-hc","tag-rajasthan-high-court","tag-rajasthan-municipal-elections-2026","tag-re-lottery","tag-reservation-lottery","tag-sanchore","tag-state-election-commission","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9444,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions\/9444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}