A PIL plea has been filed in Telangana High Court seeking an order to stay elections to 120 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations.
The petition filed by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president and Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy will be heard on Thursday by a bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy. The petitioner’s main contention is that issuing notification without announcing reservations to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes (SC, ST, BC) and women was arbitrary and illegal.
The petitioner contended that the State government had hurriedly issued a final notification on December 17 last announcing division of wards in the 130 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) for which elections notification was eventually issued by the State Election Commission (SEC) on December 23. Mr. Reddy said in the plea that the respondents, the State government, municipal administration director and SEC, deliberately didn’t finalise reservations to SC, ST, BC and women.
This was contrary to sections six and seven of Telangana Municipalities Act, the plea said. As per section six of the Act, the mandatory reservations to different groups should be finalised at the earliest in the manner prescribed under section seven. The petitioner said the SEC did not give proper response or clarification when the matter was raised during a meeting with the representatives of political parties. The SEC declined to listen to the suggestions or view of the political parties on the matter.
Mr. Reddy contended that unless the reservations are announced well in advance the prospective contestants cannot secure caste certificates and other documents for filing nominations. The notification issued by the SEC on December 23 last itself was contrary to the provisions of the Telangana Municipalities Act, the petitioner stated.
