BENGALURU: The state government has filed an application before the Karnataka High Court seeking an extension of three months to notify the reservation of wards for the November 30 deadline fixed by a single judge to conduct elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.
Meanwhile, BJP MLA and Chief Whip M Sathish Reddy filed an appeal challenging the dismissal of the petition questioning the delimitation of wards by the single judge.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Ashok S Kinagi on Wednesday admitted the appeal filed by Reddy and others, saying that the appellants have raised some arguable points, before issuing notice to the state government, BBMP and State Election Commission (SEC). However, the government’s application is yet to come up for hearing.
An application was filed by the government after the lapse of one-and-a-half months out of two months granted by the single judge vide order dated September 30, 2022, to issue reservation notification before November 30, and a month due to complete the entire election process by December 31, 2022.
The government sought more time saying that it can issue fresh reservation notification only after receiving the report from the panel constituted to recommend proper political representation for backward classes, taking into consideration the issues raised by the single judge.
On the appeal, senior counsel Prof Ravivarma Kumar argued that the single judge did not consider the issue raised by the petitioners that the wards shall be divided within the assembly constituency and not spread over the constituencies as per Section 7 (b) of the BBMP Act.
Senior counsel K N Phanindra, representing SEC, submitted that a local BBMP officer issued an endorsement to the petitioners stating that the ward in question is spread over two constituencies, though he had no authority to issue the same. This was objected by Prof Kumar on the ground that the SEC has no locus to make submissions, as the BBMP has to respond.