BENGALURU : The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing of the petition filed by the State Election Commission (SEC) in 2021 questioning the legality of the new law enacted to take away the powers conferred on the commission to carry out the exercise of delimitation, fixing of seats and reservation of seats for Taluk and Zilla Panchayats.
A vacation division bench of Justice S G Pandit and Justice M G Uma posted the matter to May 23, 2022, which will be heard by the roster bench. In view of the recent directives of the Supreme Court to conduct the elections to the local bodies, the SEC filed the memo before the vacation bench to advance the hearing.
The petition was filed in December 2021 questioning the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act, 2021, which came into force from September 18, 2021, when the SEC had almost completed the preparations to conduct the elections to TPs and ZPs. The SEC had notified delimitation of constituencies on March 2021, determination of reservation of seats on April 30, 2021 and published the final voters’ list on June 2021.