K'taka HC to hear SEC plea over zilla panchayat elections on May 17

The Karnataka High Court will hear on May 17 a plea by the Karnataka State Election Commission about holding Zilla Panchayat and Taluk Panchayat elections.

The State Election Commission (SEC) filed a memo on Thursday before the vacation bench of Justices B M Shyam Prasad and M G S Kamal in the backdrop of the Supreme Court verdict over holding the elections to these local bodies immediately.

The Election Commission pleaded before the High Court that an emergency situation has risen due to the Supreme Court’s order on Tuesday.

Senior counsel K N Phanindra, appearing for the Election Commission, submitted that the poll body’s petition over holding the ZP-TP elections was pending before the High Court. So, a memo was filed for an early hearing of this matter.

The SEC had prepared for the ZP-TP polls in Karnataka in April and May of 2021. Delimitation exercise on constituencies were completed and the final list of voters was also published by the SEC. The reservation draft was also announced last year.

But before the SEC could announce the election schedule, the state government withdrew the powers of the SEC to redraw the constituencies and prepare the reservation list. The government created a new delimitation panel to conduct the exercise.

The Election Commission had challenged the formation of this panel in a writ petition before the High Court. This petition was pending for hearing.

Following the SEC’s memo, the High Court has posted the hearing of this matter to May 17.