The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider listing a plea of the Karnataka government against the High Court's order for holding polls to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) wards.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli was informed that the 5-year term of the civic body had expired in September last year and there was an urgency as the poll process had been stayed.
“Send the file in my chamber. We will see,” the CJI said when advocate Nizam Pasha said that a bench headed by the then CJI S A Bobde (since retired) had stayed the High Court verdict of December 4, 2020 asking the SEC to hold the election within six weeks.
On December 18, 2020, the top court had stayed the High Court order for conducting BBMP polls to 198 wards instead of 243 as mandated under a new law, the Karnataka Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2020, passed by the state government to govern Bengaluru.
The top court had then issued notice to the Karnataka's State Election Commission (SEC) on a petition filed by the B S Yediyurappa government against the High Court's order to conduct the polls as expeditiously as possible.
The court sought a reply from the SEC, M Shivaraju and others, whose plea had prompted the HC to deliver its judgement.
The state government claimed the new law was passed to increase the seats for councillors from 198 to 243 wards in order to give due representation to Scheduled Castes and other marginalised communities in the municipal council of a large and growing city like Bengaluru. It also claimed the SEC had no authority to question the validly enacted legislation by a writ petition.
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