BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court, framing three questions for its own consideration, on Tuesday rejected preliminary objections, at this stage, raised by the state government on the maintainability of a batch of public interest litigations, questioning the creation of caste-based corporations, including Veerashaiva-Lingayat Development Corporation, and spending large amounts of public money for the development of a few castes.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum passed the order, admitting a batch of PILs after hearing the arguments of the counsel of the petitioners and the Advocate General (AG) on the maintainability of the petitions.
“The question for consideration before the court is whether the creation of caste-based corporation and spending huge public money in any manner violates the concept of secularism as envisaged in the Constitution. The second question is whether the state government has legal sanction under the Constitution to create such corporations.
The third is whether spending public money for the development of a few castes would violate Article 27 of the constitution,” the court said, rejecting the preliminary objections on the maintainability of writ petitions. Senior Advocate Ravivarma Kumar, representing a petitioner, submitted that the act of the state is totally arbitrary, discriminatory and based on political consideration.