Telangana High Court gives 'green signal' for Municipal elections

Hyderabad : The Telangana High Court, on Tuesday, dismissed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy challenging the election schedule issued by the Telagnana State Election Commission (SEC) on December 23. This has paved way for the conduct of Municipal elections in Telangana as scheduled.

Following HC orders, the State Election Commission (SEC) has issued the notification for conduct of municipal polls on Tuesday.

A division bench of the HC comprising of the Chief Justice of the state Justice RS Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy passed the orders after hearing the arguments of the counsels for the petitioner and the state election commission. During the course of arguments that lasted for two days , Counsel for the TPCC president, D Prakash Reddy told the court that election schedule issued by the Election commission was also the election notification as per the Telangana state Municipalities Act. He told the court that the election notification should not be released unless the process of reservations of wards of different municipalities and municipal corporations have been completed by the state government.

The counsel presenting TPCC President informed that court that election schedule issued by SEC was in complete contradiction to sub sections 1,2 and 3 of section 195 of the Act. 'Election commission did not give enough time to aspiring candidates from reserved seats to secure their community certificates to contest the elections. It ( referring to election commissione) could re-schedule the elections as the notification . I urged the court to issue directions to the state elections to re-schedule the election schedule' Uttam Kumar Reddy's counsel told the court.

Responding to this , the counsel for the SEC CV Mohan Reddy told the HC that the election schedule released on December 23,2019 by the commission, was meant to urge the voters of the state to exercise their vote as per the schedule. The counsel representing SEC made it clear that finalisation of the reservations was not the function of the commission and added that the state government was the authority to finalise the reservations of the wards. He informed the court that aspiring candidates who want contest from the reserved seats didn’t have to submit their caste certificate and added that it was enough for them to give their self declaration about their community.