A division bench of the Telangana High Court on Tuesday dismissed a writ appeal filed by the State Election Commission (SEC) against an interim order allowing a woman voter to contest the upcoming gram panchayat elections in Indugula village, Nalgonda.
The appeal challenged a single judge’s November 28 direction to consider the candidature of Chinthamalla Kalpana for a seat reserved for the Scheduled Tribe category.
Senior counsel G Vidya Sagar, for the SEC, argued that the order violated Section 11 of the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act.
Opposing this, advocate TPS Harsha said Kalpana’s name was already in the ECI records as a voter of Indugula, supported by her voter ID downloaded on November 26, and a tracking application accepted on November 13.
Noting that the case related only to an interim order, the bench said no irreparable harm would be caused by allowing the election process to continue and stressed the need to protect democratic participation. Finding no error in the earlier order, the bench dismissed the appeal but allowed the SEC to pursue its case before the single judge.
Judge wants bench to hear plea on GP poll quotas
Justice T Madhavi Devi of the Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed the registry to place a batch of six writ petitions, challenging the proceedings dated November 27, 2025 related to reservations for local body elections in several gram panchayats, before a division bench.
The petitions sought re-determination and re-notification of reservations for the posts of sarpanch and ward members.
The dispute arose after the state government issued a notification on November 25, for gram panchayat elections, reserving posts based on the 2011 Census for SC/ST population and SEEEPC-2024 data for BCs. Petitioners contended that in some villages, there is either no population or an negligible population of the reserved category, making it impossible to field candidates and resulting in vacant posts.
The state argued that only the 2011 census data could legally be relied upon for SC/ST reservations. However, the judge observed that holding elections with no possibility of filling reserved seats would defeat democratic values.
Considering the wider ramifications, the judge directed that the matters be listed before a division bench on December 3.