Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud refuses to stay Punjab rural polls

Earlier, the high court had suspended the election process.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the ongoing panchayat elections in Punjab, saying there will be “chaos” if courts start staying elections on polling day.

Polling for the panchayat elections began at 8 am on Tuesday in the state and the petitions, seeking a stay, were mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud.

“If polling has started today, how can we intervene at this stage? Probably the high court has realized the gravity of this and vacated the stay on the election,” said the bench, which also formed magistrates JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

“There will be chaos if we stay polling on polling day as well,” said chief justice DY Chandrachud.

The top court, however, agreed to hear the pleas challenging the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court allowing panchayat polls in Punjab.

In a major development, the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently dismissed around 1,000 petitions seeking cancellation of panchayat elections.

Earlier, the high court had suspended the election process.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)