HYDERABAD: Justice B Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday declined to grant interim relief in a batch of writ petitions challenging the delimitation of wards in the GHMC.
The court also directed the authorities to place ward-wise population details and authenticated ward-wise maps in public domain within 24 hours.
The court further said that once the information is uploaded, the petitioners and members of the public may submit additional objections, if any, within two days.
The judge was hearing three writ petitions filed by Ponna Venkat Ramana and two others against the preliminary notification issued by the GHMC Commissioner on December 9, 2025, proposing the division of the civic body into 300 wards.
The petitioners said that the notification was issued without following procedure prescribed under the Telangana Municipal Corporations (Delimitation of Wards) Rules, 1996, making it illegal.
A-G: Delimitation process after detailed study
The first petitioner, a resident of Aliabad in the Old City, submitted that the division of the Aliabad area into two wards had affected access to civic amenities. He argued that the lack of compactness and contiguity would weaken local self-governance through Ward Committees and Area Sabhas under the GHMC Act. The petitioners said the exercise was undertaken pursuant to GO Ms No. 266 dated December 8, based on a study report prepared by the Centre for Good Governance (CGG). They contended that the CGG report, which formed the basis for the reorganisation, was not placed in the public domain.
They argued that Rule 5 of the Delimitation Rules mandates ward formation based on the latest census, with population variation not exceeding 10%. According to them, population figures were not disclosed and variations exceeded the permissible limit. Alleged violations of Rules 6 and 7 were also raised, with claims that wards were not numbered from the north-east point in a clockwise direction and that the preliminary notification lacked maps, boundary descriptions and house-number details.
The petitioners also alleged violations of administrative and geographical contiguity, claiming that some wards spanned multiple Assembly segments. Objections were raised under Rule 8 as well, with the contention that the notification was not placed before a GHMC representative general body, particularly in the context of the proposed merger of 27 ULBs, whose elected representatives were excluded from consultations. Opposing the petitions, Advocate General A Sudarshan Reddy submitted that the delimitation exercise was not undertaken overnight and followed detailed study and deliberation.
He told the court that the exercise would benefit residents, especially with the expansion of municipalities up to the Outer Ring Road. The A-G said 3,102 objections had already been received, each assigned a unique number, and assured that all would be considered and responded to. Senior counsel J Prabhakar, appearing for the petitioners, said that their objections were not meaningfully addressed and questioned the basis of delimitation in the absence of publicly disclosed ward-wise population data. After hearing all sides, the court declined to halt the delimitation process but underlined the need for transparency.