Telangana High Court stays panchayat polls in Mangapeta mandal

HYDERABAD: In a significant development, the Telangana High Court on Friday stayed conduct of elections to all 25 gram panchayats of Mangapeta mandal in Jayashanker Bhupalapally district of the State scheduled to be held on Jan 30. The Court found fault with issue of election notification despite interim order issued earlier by the court directing not to issue any notification.

Justice PV Sanjay Kumar was passing this interim order in the petitions filed by Gone Thirupathaiah and several others challenging the action of the authorities in reserving all the 25 gram panchayats of the mandal for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and for issue of election notification.

Senior counsel S Ramachandra Rao, appearing for the petitioners, said that the above villages were ‘non-agency’ area between 1950 and 2006, and the State government had issued orders in 2006 recognizing them as agency area. When it was challenged, a single judge had set aside the same and an appeal was filed on it. In 2014, the Court issued interim orders directing the authorities to take into consideration the Mangapeta mandal as agency area and not to issue any notification. When the interim order was in force, the authorities have recently issued orders reserving all sarpanch posts in the mandal for STs, he pointed out.

On the other hand, additional advocate general J Ramachandra Rao submitted that the said posts were reserved to STs as all the locals belongs to girijan community.

Disputing with the above submission, the petitioner’s counsel said that the ST population was only 24 per cent of the total population in the mandal as per 2011 census, hence it was not proper to declare the entire mandal as agency area.

After hearing both sides, the judge stayed conduct of elections in all the 25 gram panchayats in Mangapeta mandal.