HC restrains SEC from giving out BBMP polls till tomorrow

The High Court on Monday restrained the State Election Commission (SEC) from announcing the calendar of events for the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections till April 22.

Hearing an appeal by the State government against a single bench order that the BBMP polls should be held before May 30, the division bench comprising Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice Ram Mohan Reddy passed an interiem order and adjourned the hearing to Wednesday.

Earlier, Advocate General Ravivarma Kumar updated the division bench on the developments that have taken place after the previous hearing of the case. He said the State government had dissolved the BBMP and appoined an administrator. Also, a special session of legislature is on to discuss the Karnataka Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, which proposes to constitute three municipal corporations to replace the BBMP. If the two Houses give their nod to the Bill and it gets the consent of the Governor, the BBMP will cease to exist.

The AG appealed to the bench to consider his submission and set aside the single judge order to conduct elections by May 30. The bench stated that it needs to hear what the government has to say in the matter and adjourned the hearing to Wednesday.

During the hearing, the counsel for the SEC K M Phanindra submitted that the Commission has taken steps to conduct elections and the notification for polls will be issued on Monday. Senior counsel Nanjunda Reddy and other counsels appearing for former corporators and various organisations termed the action of the government to dissolve the BBMP illegal and sought to conduct the elections. It is for the SEC to fix the date of elections. Government cannot seek to postpone elections citing trifurcation, said Reddy.

Senior counsels Lakshmi Narayana and Sajan Pooviah said that only the SEC has the authority to fix the date for election and the State has no role to play after it notified the list of reservation of wards.