Stay extended on reservation guidelines

Justice Nagmohan Das, hearing a petition by B Ramakrishna and others extended the stay and adjourned the hearing to next week, on Thursday. The government, with the extension of the stay, will be unable to comply with the HC ruling of Sept 17, 2009, which directed to release the calendar of events for the BBMP elections on or before October 9, 2009. “With the stay being extended, the elections will be invariably postponed till the High Court clarifies on the guidelines to reserve wards for the BBMP elections,” said Advocate General, Ashok Haranahalli.

The government had directed to assess the Assembly constituencies and identify the wards with high population of SC and ST voters and consider the data for reserving the wards. Petitioners terming the direction “unscientific,” have claimed that Assembly constituencies cannot be compared with BBMP wards.Officials say that while extension of the stay will delay declaration of  the calendar of events, everything will fall into place automatically, once the SEC “demonstrates” the readiness to hold the polls.