A Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka has held that nominated members of municipalities and town panchayats have no right to vote in the elections to the Legislative Council from the Local Authority Constituencies (LAC).
When Article 243R (2)(e) mandates that the nominated members of the municipal bodies have no right to vote in the meetings of the municipal bodies, they cannot have the right to vote in the elections from the LAC, said the Bench, comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Ashok S. Kinagi
The Bench upheld the verdict of the single judge, who on November 3, 2011 declared that nominated members had no voting rights in the elections from the LAC and had ordered for deletion of names of the nominated members of various municipal bodies in Chikkamagaluru district from the electoral rolls of LAC.
Referring to the provisions of the Constitution and the judgments of the apex court, the Bench made it clear that only the elected members were to be considered as “councillors” as per Section 2(6) of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964 and not the nominated members.
Pointing out that Section 2(6) of the Act empowered only the “councillors” to cast their vote in the meetings of municipal bodies, the Bench said that elected members were chosen by popular vote and carried with them the mandate of the people, whereas, nominated members were appointed by councillors.
“The elected members and the nominated members cannot be said to be belong to the same class,” the Bench observed, while dismissing the appeals against the single judge’s verdict.
