Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday, September 1, ordered the state government to respond within three weeks to a petition challenging the delimitation process of wards in local body elections.
The petitioner in the case, Syed Saleem, argued that the delimitation of municipal wards has been carried out in violation of a government order dated November 6, 1996, GO 570, which mandates population-based delimitation as opposed to the voter-based delimitation that is being followed under the Telangana Municipal Act 2019, stated a report in The Indian Express.
According to the aforementioned government order, population of each ward must be close to the “average population” per ward across the entire municipality. In case of unforeseen circumstances, a variation of up to 10 per cent can be allowed.
However, the petitioner has argued that the GHMC, with a population of 74 lakh as per the 2011 census, should have around 49,000 to 54,000 voters in each ward, but the delimitation of GHMC wards has been done in such a way that one ward has 78,000 voters, while another only has 28,000 voters. Such violations have been recorded in 117 of the 150 wards, the petitioner stated.
The petitioner also referred to provisions under section 5(1) of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, section 32 A of the Uttar Pradesh Municipal Corporation (Adi niyam) 1959, section 10 (3) of the Madhya Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act 1956, section 6 of the Arunachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation act and section 8(1) of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1976, all of which treat population as the criteria for delimitation.
The petitioner sought directions from the High Court restricting the GHMC from announcing or conducting elections till the delimitation process is completed in accordance with the law.
In response to this, the High Court directed the state government to respond to the petition in three weeks.
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