New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Karnataka government and the state election body to hold the long-pending polls for Bengaluru local body by June 30.
The tenure of the earlier elected body for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) expired on September 10, 2020, and since then a government-appointed administrator has been taking care of its day-to-day affairs.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice JK Maheshwari, which fixed the schedule for the poll process, said that the final ward-wise reservation list shall be published by the state government by February 20, and made it clear that no further extension shall be granted.
The court asked the State of Karnataka to publish the final ward-wise reservation by February 20, 2026. The Bench stressed that no further extensions would be given for the conduct of the election.
The case stemmed from an appeal filed by the State against a 2020 High Court judgment, directing the SEC to conduct elections for only 198 wards of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) within six weeks. The State had argued that the decision nullified the unanimous will of the State Legislature, which amended the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act of 1976, to increase the number of wards in Bengaluru to 243.
The State had argued that the High Court decision severely handicapped efforts to “improve urban governance in one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in India”.
The State Government had contended that the High Court direction to conduct elections to 198 wards was contrary to “a validly and unanimously enacted piece of legislation by the State Legislature”. It had been argued that Article 243-ZA(2) of the Constitution empowered the State Legislature to make provisions with respect to “all matters relating to or in connection with elections to municipalities”.
In 2022, the Karnataka Government had sought more time for the elections as a delimitation of wards for the civic body polls was in its “final stage” and a “dedicated commission” was in the process of determining the reservation to be provided for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the elections.
The State Government had submitted that a new municipal corporation was constituted in Bengaluru under the Bruhat Bangaluru Mahanagar Palike Act of 2020, which came into effect from January 11, 2021. The State had, in a May 2022 hearing, assured that the delimitation of wards and the carving out of OBC reservation for the polls would be completed and notified in eight weeks.
