HC rejects petitions challenging delimitation exercise of civic body

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed over a dozen petitions challenging the delimitation carried out to carve out 243 wards in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

The judgement will, however, be pronounced on September 21. The single judge Bench of Justice Hemanth Chandanagoudar dismissed the 14 petitions including those filed by politicians like Congress MLAs B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan and Sowmya Reddy and BJP MLA M Satish Reddy.

The court observed that if there are any lapses or mistakes, they can be rectified before the next elections. It has, thereby, agreed to the stance of the State Election Commission (SEC) that elections have to be held immediately as per the latest delimitation even if there are lacunae.

The SEC is expected to release the final list of voters for the BBMP election on September 22.

The petitions by Sowmya Reddy and Khan claimed that the number of wards in their respective Assembly constituencies were reduced and there was politics behind it. But the court was told that wards in other Assembly segments held by their party MLAs had increased. Satish Reddy claimed areas of his constituency were added to wards of other constituencies.

The government defended the delimitation process stating that the average population of each ward was at 34,750 with a deviation of 10 per cent on either side.

While increasing the number of wards from 198 to 243, the 2011 census data has been used by the government.

The hearing of the petitions challenging the August 3 reservation list for the 243 wards of BBMP was adjourned to September 21. The same Bench is also hearing these batch of petitions.

The court directed the authorities to submit the details of the criteria that was adopted to come up with the reservation list.

The reservation list reserves 81 seats for backward classes, 28 for SCs and 4 for STs. Across the 243 wards, 126 are reserved for women.