Telangana High Court on Monday declined to pass any interim orders in a PIL petition stating that government was gearing up for GHMC elections without following the rule of rotation of reserved divisions.
A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy, however, directed the State government, State Election Commission and GHMC Commissioner to file detailed counter affidavits on the matter. The petition was filed by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Dasoju Sravan Kumar.
He contended that the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that reserved divisions must be governed by rule of rotation but the State government was not adhering to it. Due to this, people belonging to most backward classes were being deprived of an opportunity to avail reservations, he stated.
The PIL plea was moved in the form of lunch motion. Hearing contentions of the petitioner’s lawyer, the bench expressed dissatisfaction over the petitioner moving the HC on the matter just before GHMC elections. The apex court had passed orders over following rotation of reserved wards 10 years ago. By approaching the court before the elections, the petitioner seemed to be aiming at deferring the elections, the bench observed.
The previous GHMC elections were held in 2016. The bench remarked that the petitioner had an option of moving the HC after the previous GHMC elections and securing clear order on the matter. It appeared that political interests drove the petitioner to move the court rather than public interest, the bench said. The bench directed the Registry to tag this petition to batch of PIL pleas with similar content.
Meanwhile, Justice A. Abhishek Reddy of the HC placed before the bench headed by the CJ a writ petition challenging section 5 (2) (e) of the GHMC Amendment Act-2020 pertaining to rotation of reserved divisions. GHMC former Deputy Mayor and BJP leader Subhash Chander Ji filed the petition seeking a direction to declare the amendment as illegal.
The petitioner’s counsel B. Rachna Reddy contended that earlier there was rotation of reserved divisions for one term. The amendment which made rotation for two consecutive terms was in violation of constitutional provisions, she argued.
