HYDERABAD: Refusing to consider the plea of the Telangana government for dismissal of batch petitions wherein stay was granted earlier on conduct of elections to about about 77 municipalities (out of a total of 128 in the State), Justice A Rajasheker Reddy of the High Court on Wednesday decided to hear these petitions case-wise. Accordingly, the judge commenced hearing of the petitions case-wise.
Earlier, additional advocate general J Ramachandra Rao urged the court to dismiss the batch petitions and to pave way for conduct of election to such municipalities. He said that the division bench order dated October 22 this year would be applicable to the present pending cases also.
The division bench dismissed the PILs which have challenged the entire pre-poll process relating to wards delimitation, reservations and so on. The State was already lagging behind the time schedule. A common counter affidavit was already filed in the batch petitions, he added.
Disputing with the submissions of AAG, the counsels appearing for the petitioners have urged the court to hear their cases individually as the allegations differ from one municipality to another. In fact, the State government has not filed counter affidavit in each of these cases, they pointed out.
Senior counsel G Vidya Sagar, appearing for the State Election Commission, said that it would be proper to hold elections in all municipalities simultaneously. After hearing both sides, the judge decided to hear each of the case separately since there was no consensus between the two parties.
On October 22, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy dismissed the PILs filed seeking stay on issuance of notification to conduct elections to municipalities and municipal corporations.
The bench made it clear to the State government that it has to clear the hurdles which were preventing the municipal elections in the petitions pending before the judge who granted stay on elections in some of the municipalities.