BENGALURU: The elections to the urban local bodies of Nelamangala Town Municipal Council and the Pattana Panchayat of Soraba in Shivamogga district will be held as scheduled. The Karnataka High Court has declined to interfere in the matter as it has already been notified by the State Election Commission (SEC). Justice B M Shyam Prasad dismissed the petitions challenging the SEC notification.
As far as Nelamangala is concerned, N P Hemanthkumar, ex-counsellor of the TMC and others challenged the communication issued by the SEC to the Deputy Commissioner on May 2 to publish the calendar of events for the TMC polls. They contended that the term of Nelamangala TMC had expired and the state Cabinet had approved the conversion of Nelamangala TMC into a City Municipal Council and had forwarded the file to the Governor. However, the Governor returned the file in view of the Model Code of Conduct due to the LS polls.
The court said that SEC had issued notification much before the petitioners had approached the court.
On the other hand, M D Umesh and two others from Soraba contended that the Pattana Panchayat had passed a resolution for conversion of it into a TMC in 2017.Further, the petitioners stated that after the requisite census, the Shivamogga Deputy Commissioner recommended upgrading the Pattana Panchayat into a TMC and the state Cabinet is yet to consider the proposal. Despite the same, the SEC notified the polls, they claimed.
For this, the court said that it cannot reasonably be concluded that neither Nelamangala TMC nor Soaraba Pattana Panchayat are at the cusp of getting upgraded into a CMC or a TMC respectively. “As such, in the considered opinion of this court, no judicial interference would be permissible, and consequentially the writ petitions are liable to be dismissed,” it said. This came after senior counsel for SEC K N Phaneendra argued that the election process commenced much earlier.