State gets 12 weeks to redo in delimitation of BBMP wards

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A division bench of the High Court of Karnataka has given the State 12 weeks to re-do the delimitation exercise of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) wards. Setting aside a singlejudge bench order which had allowed the delimitation carried out earlier, the division bench said that it should be re-done with strict adherence to law. The single-judge had dismissed a batch of petitions that had challenged the delimitation exercise.

BN Manjunatha Reddy, one of the petitioners before the single judge, had filed an appeal challenging the single judge order. The appeal claimed that the earlier “exercise of delimitation by the previous dispensation is arbitrary, unreasonable and smacked with political malafides.” Senior advocate Uday Holla argued the case for Reddy’s advocate Shathabish Shivanna.

Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty, appearing for the State conceded to the Court that there were errors in the delimitation exercise carried out earlier and the redoing of the delimitation was a necessity. He sought time from the Court for the same. Accepting the argument, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal granted 12 weeks to carry it out.

The main grouse of the petitioners challenging the earlier demarcation was that under Section 7(B) of the BBMP Act, Wards should be demarcated within the existing Assembly constituency boundaries. However these guidelines have not been followed. It was argued that the singlejudge bench did not consider this plea of the petitioners in its judgement.

A total of 14 petitions had challenged the delimitation exercise including those filed by politicians Zameer Ahmed Khan, Sowmya Reddy and M Satish Reddy. The Government had increased the number of BBMP wards from 198 to 243 and carried out the delimitation exercise by allotting an average of 34,750 voters to each ward.