BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday directed the State Government to complete the delimitation of wards and extend reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBC) in 12 weeks.
Within a week after this, the State Election Commission (SEC) has to notify the election process, the court ordered while clarifying that the state government should complete the said exercise positively in 12 weeks and should not seek any further time.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Ashok S Kinagi passed the order after hearing the petition filed by the SEC in 2021 questioning the legality of the new law enacted to take away the powers conferred on the commission to carry out the exercise of delimitation, fixing of seats and reservation of seats for Taluk Panchayats and Zilla Panchayats, to May 23, 2022.
In view of the recent directives of the supreme court to conduct the elections to the local bodies, the SEC filed the memo to advance the hearing. Accordingly, the matter was heard and order was passed.
The petition was filed in December 2021 questioning the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act, 2021 which came into force on September 18, 2021, when SEC has almost completed the preparations to conduct elections for TPs and ZPs across the state. The SEC had notified delimitation of constituencies on March 2021, determination of reservation of seats on April 30, 2021 and published final voters list in June 2021.
Contending that the new law enacted by the state government derailed the process already done and could not conduct the elections to TPs and ZPs as per the constitutional mandate, the SEC moved the Karnataka High Court questioning the new law in December 2021.