Some petitioners had alleged that more seats were reserved for women in assembly constituencies represented by opposition parties.
BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday set the State Election Commission (SEC) December 31, 2022 as the date by which the entire process of elections to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has to be completed. The court also set November 30, 2022 as the deadline for the state government to issue final notification after re-doing the reservation for women and Other Backward Classes (OBC).
Justice Hemant Chandangoudar passed the order while allowing a batch of petitions questioning the reservation notification, saying it was issued by the Urban Development Department in contravention of the triple test enumerated by the Supreme Court. Some petitioners had alleged that more seats were reserved for women in assembly constituencies represented by opposition parties.
The court observed that the reservation in particular constituencies would deprive women of other constituencies from participating in political issues and the same was arbitrary and discriminatory to women in all the constituencies. Therefore, it would be appropriate that the reservation for women was spread out proportionally. Hence, the court directed the state government to redo the exercise of providing reservation to women for election by allocating seats in a descending order with respect towards having a greater percentage of population of women, and ordered that equality be maintained.
‘Seats for BCs a statutory requirement’
While quashing the reservation notification, dated August 15, 2022, issued for 243 BBMP wards, the court observed that it could not be dispensed with as allocating seats to backward classes was a statutory requirement. The court directed the state government to collect empirical data on a war footing and furnish the same to the commission constituted by the state government to look into the political reservation for OBC in local bodies.
After receiving the report from the commission, the state government has to publish the final notification providing reservation for OBC as specified under Section 8 of the BBMP Act, 2020 on or before November 30, 2022.
The SEC should complete the election process within 30 days from the date of final notification, the court added. The court has directed listing of the matter for reporting of compliance of the order on November 30, 2022.
Some of the petitioners have also challenged the report submitted in July 2022 by the committee constituted by the state government recommending reservation for OBCs in local bodies. The court has not considered the request of the state government to provide 16 weeks to redo the reservation, as two years had already lapsed without conducting elections to the BBMP. The court had dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the delimitation of wards a few days ago.
