SC confirms rights of MPs, MLAs, MLCs in choosing mayor

MPs, MLAs and MLCs have the right to vote in the mayoral and deputy mayoral elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, a Supreme Court ruling has confirmed.

An apex court bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, R Banumathi and Naveen Sinha dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) by anti-corruption activist T J Abraham, challenging the Karnataka high court decision that the BBMP election on September 11, 2015, was not vitiated by the participation of the MPs, MLAs and MLCs.

"We don't find any legal and valid ground for interference," the bench said in a brief order, while dismissing the SLP.

The high court had noted in its judgement that there was no conflict in the provisions of the law and found no need to read the word "corporation" as used in Section 10 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act to mean only the directly elected councillors.

Section 7 of the KMC Act makes MPs, MLAs and MLCs the "non-elected councillors" of the corporation. Section 2(7) included the three representatives in the category of "councillors".

In his petition before the Supreme Court, Abraham argued that the purpose of including nominated members is restricted to assist the council in running the corporation and they should not be allowed to vote in the garb of Article 243(R) of the Constitution. He also contended that giving them voting rights would run contrary to the basic structure of the Constitution.

The Karnataka government, represented by Additional Advocate General Devadatt Kamat, defended the provisions of KMC Act.

The BBMP's electoral college is made of the 198 directly elected councillors, eight Rajya Sabha MPs, five members of the Lok Sabha, 28 MLAs and 21 MLCs. In total, the electoral college consists of 260 members.