Residents of Express View Apartments, a residential society in Sector 93, Noida, elected Sujeet Pandey as the president of the society’s apartment owners association.
Satish Kumar, the returning officer who is also the assistant commissioner of co-operative society, Gautam Budh Nagar, declared the AOA election results late in the evening on February 28. The election was held on February 26.
Pandey received 374 votes, the maximum by a candidate in the election. Residents also elected Tanmay Shankar, Rajkumar Jha, Vikram Srivastava, Abhimeet Singh, Anjana Singh, Anupama Chauhan, Gaurav Tripathi and NK Yadav as members of the AOA. Shankar, Jha and Srivastava were later chosen for the post of the vice-president, secretary and the treasurer of the AOA respectively.
The AOA election was expected to lay to rest the infighting among residents but it seems the discord is likely to continue.
Elected members of the AOA pose for a photo
The declaration of the result was delayed by two days over an unconfirmed interim measure of the Allahabad High Court. The returning officer said that he had given the petitioner a time of two days to submit the copy of the order. But as the petitioner failed to do so, the results were declared.
Gajendra Kumar, a resident, had filed a writ petition in the Allahabad High Court on February 20 against the state of UP and others. The petitioner claimed before the court that the election was in violation of the by-laws of the society, which say that only residents who own a flat in the society have the right to elect the members of the managing committee. But the electoral rolls of the society includes names of tenants as well.
Archit Mandhyan, the petitioner’s counsellor, claimed that the court had passed an interim measure under which the election could be held but the result of the election would have to be declared subject to the final order passed in the writ petition.
Kumar said, “Announcement of the results has violated the court order. I am going to file a petition for contempt of court. ”
The Allahabad High Court had put a stay order on the election held in 2015 and the court’s judgement on the case is yet to come. The court is scheduled to hear the case on March 2.
