BENGALURU: The State Election Commission (SEC) has knocked on the doors of the Karnataka High Court against the state government which has not issued notifications on reservation of seats in all the 215 urban local bodies and on delimitation of wards for 18 of them.
Taking it seriously, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar on Wednesday observed that the issue is serious as the SEC moved the court against the government. Therefore, the government advocate has to get instructions from the officials concerned, the bench said while adjourning the hearing to Thursday.
Earlier, advocate K N Phanindra, representing the Commission, argued that it has proposed to hold the first phase of elections to 116 municipalities in July. For this, the government has to issue notification for delimitation of wards. Till date, the government has not provided the list of delimitation of wards despite sending several reminders. This will result in delay in conducting elections, he argued.
According to the SEC, the government has failed to observe that the petitioner has been taking all necessary steps for the smooth conduct of the elections to all the 215 urban local bodies in two phases and is only awaiting the notification by the government reservation of seats and delimitation of wards.
Despite taking all necessary action on its part, the SEC is unable to proceed further in announcing and declaring the elections to the municipal bodies because of circumstances beyond its control, the SEC said.
Further, the SEC stated that the government has failed to consider that non-conduct of elections during July 2018 will pave the way for appointment of administrators in 116 ULBs from September 2018.
Further, all Deputy Commissioners who are also the District Election Officers will be busy in preparations for the forthcoming Assembly elections due in May-June and if the reservation notifications are not issued immediately, the election will get delayed till the completion of legislative assembly elections.
Taking all these factors into consideration, the State Election Commission decided to conduct the ULB elections during July. If the government does not immediately provide the reservation lists, the elections will unnecessarily get delayed, thereby violating the Constitutional mandate, SEC said. Taking these facts into account, the SEC sought directions from the court to the state government to issue final notification of reservation of seats to all the wards of 215 different municipalities (urban local bodies) and final delimitation notification of all the wards of 18 different municipal bodies (urban local bodies) under the provisions of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act and the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964.
.jpg "(AP Photo)")
