The High Court of Karnataka on Monday (June 19) gave 12 weeks to the State government to redo the delimitation of wards of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as per the law.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice M.G.S. Kamal, passed the order on an appeal filed by B.N. Manjunath Reddy and three others. The petitioners had questioned the November 16, 2022, verdict of a single judge, who had found no fault in the delimitation process and the delimitation notification issued on July 14, 2022.
The Bench passed the order by accepting the appeal after the Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty said there is a need to redo the delimitation to rectify the errors pointed out by the appellants.
It was contended in the appeal that delimitation was not proper on several aspects, including disproportionate distribution of population among wards with some wards having higher population and some considerably low population.
The delimitation process had ignored the geographical, physical details, and communication and health facilities causing inconvenience to the public at large, and the major roads, storm-water drains, and train tracks were unscientifically split so that they run through two or more wards.
“The single judge failed to appreciate that the blocks consisting of people having the same social and cultural practices have been separated as opposed to keeping them intact for conventional purposes. This will greatly inconvenience the general population who would be deprived of the basic essential facilities guaranteed to them under the law,” it was contended in the appeal.
