Poll panel opposes delimitation to carve out 243 BBMP wards

The poll panel has opposed the state government notification for conducting a fresh delimitation exercise to carve out 243 wards in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

The Karnataka State Election Commission and other petitioners requested the high court to direct the government to issue a final reservation notification for 198 wards, the previous strength of the BBMP. The government recently amended the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, increasing the number of BBMP wards to 243 and issuing a notification on October 14 to form a delimitation commission.

The commission argued that the amendment was introduced well after the preparations for the polls began.

Senior counsel K N Phaneendra, appearing for the state election commission, informed the court that the preparation of ward-wise electoral rolls is underway and that valuable public money and time has been spent on it. Even the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been finalised in the wake of the pandemic. Starting the process of fixing the boundaries of 243 wards and publishing the reservation list thereafter will be a time-consuming affair, the counsel. There is a constitutional compulsion to create and keep alive the municipalities which are institutions of local self-governance, he stated.

Senior counsel Ravivarma Kumar, appearing for one of the petitioners, stated that the government had promulgated the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Third Amendment) Act, 2020, after the term of the outgoing BBMP council ended. Fresh elections should have been held before September 10, 2020, when the term ended, he stated and argued that the act was not with retrospective in effect. He said that taking shelter under the amended act would run contrary to the provisions of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act and Article 243U of the Constitution.

Considering these submissions, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka directed the state government to file its response within a week. The matter has been adjourned until November 10.