BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday cleared the decks for holding elections to the Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru City Corporations by dismissing a batch of petitions challenging the delimitation of wards and reservation seats of wards notified by the government to the said local bodies.
In the batch of petitions from Mysuru, the residents had sought directions to the state to carry out delimitation of 65 wards in Mysuru City Corporation based on 2011 population and to increase the number of wards by including Preethi and Sai Layouts.
Petitioners from Tumakuru had also challenged the delimitation of wards. The court said that after completion of five years, fresh bodies or representatives have to be constituted by holding elections on or before September 5, 2018. In the present case, therefore it cannot direct the respondent authorities to flout the mandate of the Constitution by quashing impugned notification issued for delimitation of wards.
In another batch, the petitioners challenged the notification dated July 19, 2018 issued by the state government relating to the reservation of seats in respect of Mysuru and Shivamogga Municipal Corporation wards.
While dismissing these petitions, the court said that the elections to the local bodies are imminent to be conducted on or before September 5, 2018, as mandated under Article 243 ‘U’ of the Constitution. It is not possible for this court to interfere with the election process, the court said.
‘Successive govts failed to frame reservation rules’
“This court ardently hopes and trusts that the state government will take necessary steps to frame appropriate rules for reservation of seats in respect of election to local bodies/municipalities/corporations, etc. at the earliest in the interest of general public at large”. The court made this observation while pointing out that all successive governments had failed to frame the reservation rules even after the implementation of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1976.