HYDERABAD: In a relief to Telangana government, a division bench of the High Court on Friday dismissed batch petitions filed challenging merger of certain gram panchayats into municipalities -- small urban area or larger urban area, and also constitution of new municipalities by merging the gram panchayats in various districts of the state.
“We are of the view that the petitioners failed to make out a case to invalidate the impugned Amending Act 4 of 2018”, the bench noted.The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice A Rajasheker Reddy was passing this order in 127 petitions challenging the state amendment contained in Act 4 of 2018 brought into Section 3 of the Telangana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 and the amendment contained in Act 4 of 2018 brought into Sections 2 and 3 of the Act, 1965.
On earlier occasion, the counsels appearing for the petitioners contended that the State government has not followed the procedure as envisaged in Act 1994 or Act 1965 or Rules made there under.
On the other hand, State Additional Advocate General J Ramachandra Rao contended that there was no conflict of provisions of the Act 1994 or the Rules and that of Article 243-Q (2) of the Constitution on the above issue. The Bill passed in the legislature had received the assent of government in March last year for merger of various gram panchayats into municipal corporations.