The High Court of Karnataka granted 12 more week to the State government to complete the exercise of delimitation in taluk and zilla Panchayats, to complete process of providing reservation to SCs, STs, OBCs, and other categories.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty passed the interim order on an application filed by the State government seeking more time to complete the exercise as the Delimitation Commission has sought three months to complete the process of delimitation.
The Bench passed the order while hearing a PIL petition filed by the State Election Commission (SEC), which had questioned the legality of enacting the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Act, 2021, which came into force from September 18, 2021, when SEC was in the last leg of preparations before announcing elections to all TPs and ZPs.
The court, in its May 24, 2022, interim order passed in this PIL, had given 12 weeks to the government to complete the process of delimitation and fixation of reservation for various categories.
he SEC had said that it was not aggrieved by the amended law, which took away SEC’s power for carrying out delimitation and fixing reservation but was concerned about nullifying the exercises of delimitation and reservation already completed by it for timely holding of elections to these local bodies.
