HYDERABAD: The Public Interest Litigation (PIL), filed by Mr M. Padmanabha Reddy of the Good Governance Forum challenged the continuation of the administration of the civic body by appointing a special officer.
Telangana advocate general K. Ramakrishna Reddy told the bench that the government had notified 200 divisions and 249 days were required for reparation of division-wise and polling station-wise electoral rolls, conducting door to door surveys for identification of BC voters, publication of ward-wise final electoral rolls with BC voters, notifying the reserved seats for SC, ST, BC and for women.
He said the election proc-ess would be initiated after completion of the aforesaid statutory processes.
While submitting that Hyderabad city had grown geographically and its boundaries had extended on par with Singapore, the advocate general urged the court to grant six months to complete the election process.
Counsel for the petitioner Sivaraju Srinivas, objecting to the advocate general’s request, contending that three months would be enough to complete the election process.
After hearing both the parties, the bench said that the time proposed by the government was not reasonable.
It, however, gave requisite time to the government to prepare the groundwork for conducting the polls to the civic body. While granting the interim direction, the bench made it clear that it would not grant any extension of time under any circumstances for the said elections.
The bench directed the AG to file a counter-affidavit on the main plea and posted the case after the summer vacation.
