Nagpur: Over 500 lawyers, who failed to deposit one year mandatory subscription fee for renewing their membership with High Court Bar Association (HCBA), won’t be eligible to cast their vote in the association polls on March 12, said poll panel members.
According to HCBA members, out of the 2,450 lawyers enrolled with it, 1,847 had deposited the subscription amount with the association office till the deadline on Tuesday.
The election panel had extended earlier deadline of December 11, 2020, till February 16 after a group of lawyers made an appeal for it.
The remaining 100-125 lawyers are new ones and therefore, they too can’t vote. The polls have been were delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic by about a year.
According to HCBA members, in a majority of cases, the contestants themselves deposited an amount towards members’ subscription to secure their votes.
As per the poll schedule declared by the panel, the issuance of nomination forms started from Wednesday and the deadline for submission is February 25 till 4.30pm. On the same day, the list of validly nominated candidates will be published later in the evening.
The contestants can withdraw till March 3 till 4.30pm and their final list would be published on the same day at 4.45pm.
About 37 lawyers had filed their nomination forms for various posts before the polls were postponed last year. All of them are either from various groups or contesting as an independent. An interesting battle is on cards even as no big names are involved, unlike the 2017 polls.
According to the members, all contestants have resorted to hectic campaigning and increasingly using the social media to reach the voters.
The poll panel had issued a series of directives to contestants to strictly abide by the standard operating procedure for a safe and smooth election. It has barred candidates from visiting the voters’ home during campaigning.
Source link
English
हिन्दी