The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday set a deadline of November 26 for the State Government to publish the final notification reserving seats for the 56 urban local bodies, elections for which are due following expiry of tenure of the elected body.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum issued the direction while hearing a PIL petition initiated suo motu by the High Court last year over failure of the Government to conduct timely elections to several of the ULBs.
The Government, in the afternoon session, assured the court that final notification of reservation of wards in all the 56 local bodies would be published by November 26 after the Bench, during morning session, took serious exception for not even specifying the outer limit for issuing notification even though time granted by the court had lapsed.
Initially, the court on July 2, 2021 gave three months time to the Government to complete the process of reservation. However, the court on September 16, on the request made on behalf of the Government, granted two months to issue both the draft and the final notification on reservation.
Meanwhile, the Bench recorded the submissions made on behalf of the State Election Commission that process of holding elections to 56 ULBs would be completed by December 30 based on the reservation notification to be made available to the commission.
