BENGALURU: The Election Commission of India has moved the Karnataka High Court questioning an interim order passed by a single-judge bench not to announce the results of the Council elections from the Bengaluru Urban local bodies without prior permission of the court when the voting rights of 15 nominated members of the local bodies is pending consideration.
Permitting Friday’s elections from the Bengaluru Urban local bodies constituency, on the petition filed Congress candidate Yusuf Sharif and others, the single-judge bench had issued a rider that the votes of the 15 nominated members of the Bommasandra, Attibele and Anekal town municipal councils should be placed in a sealed cover and that the results should not be declared without the leave of the court. A separate ballot box should be kept for polling and the votes should be kept in a sealed cover, the judge had ordered.
When the ECI’s petition was taken up on Friday, a division bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum said it will be taken up on December 13, a day before counting of votes.
The petitioners have contended that the members nominated under Article 243, who had no right to vote in the meetings of the municipal council, could not be voting in Council election and therefore, permitting them to vote in the elections is against the Constitution, they contended.