Furnish Ward Delimitation Exercise: Telangana HC

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the state government to furnish details of the ward delimitation exercise carried out for the GHMC elections within three weeks.

The order came in response to a petition filed by Syed Saleem of Nawasahabkunta and the Delhi-based Zakat Foundation of India. Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Barkat Ali Khan argued that the delimitation was conducted in violation issued under the GHMC Act, 1955.

He informed the court that elections to the local bodies were being conducted under the impugned provision without proper delimitation of the constituencies, which gave rise to great variation in the constituencies of each ward. He said that in some wards the voter strength exceeded 70,000 voters while in others it was less than 30,000 voters. He said to the court that over two-thirds of GHMC`s wards showed such irregularities.

The bench noted that since the election notification had not been issued, the petition was based only on apprehension. Granting the state three weeks to file its response, the court posted the matter for further hearing thereafter.

HC Declines to Grant Directions on CBI Probe

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday was not inclined to grant interim directions to restrain the state government from taking action, based on the decision by the Telangana Assembly to entrust the probe into the alleged irregularities in the execution of Kaleshwaram project to the CBI.

The High Court did not consider the requests of former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and former minister T. Harish Rao, who petitioned the court to stop the government from issuing proceedings based on the decision for at least a day, till Tuesday, till the High Court heard their petitions seeking to set aside the Justice P.C. Ghose commission report, as well as their interim applications seeking directions to the government to not take further action on the report.

The High Court directed the Advocate General to obtain instructions by Tuesday on whether the state government had taken, or intended to take, action on the commission’s findings. “Tell us whether you are going to take any action today, tomorrow, or if it is in the pipeline… so that the necessary sense of urgency can be taken note of,” a division bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin told the Advocate General.

Late last week, Chandrashekar Rao and Harish Rao had filed interim applications to stop the government from taking action based on Justice Ghose report.

On Monday, Aryama Sundaram and Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the petitioners Harish Rao and Chandrashekar Rao, pressed for interim orders restraining the government from handing over the case to the CBI. They argued that if no protection was granted, the government might act immediately and later inform the court that the matter was concluded. The bench declined to issue such directions, remarking that these were only the petitioners’ apprehensions.

The bench also rejected their request to hear the interim applications filed at post lunch break on Monday. Counsels argued that if the government issued any GO under the Police Act to entrust the probe to CBI on Monday, the interim applications would become infructuous . Hence, they sought directions to the government to not issue any proceedings till the High Court decided the matter on Tuesday. The court was not inclined to pass any interim directions to stop the government.

Telangana HC Seeks Govt Response on Holding Municipal Elections

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the state government to submit its contention on conducting elections to municipalities whose tenure had expired. The court directed the Advocate-General’s office or the additional advocate general to submit the information to the court by Tuesday.

Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy was dealing with a petition complaining that elections to the Nirmal municipality had not been held though its term had expired on March 25. Chinnolla Naresh Reddy, counsel for the petitioner, said the State Election Commission had not initiated the election process.

Senior counsel G. Vidyasagar, representing the State Election Commission, submitted that the poll panel was ready to hold elections if the government completed the pre-election process like delimitation of wards and notified reservations. He said the polls are held in concurrence with the government which has to consider matters pertaining to the law and order situation, security, Central armed police forces and the logistics of their deployment, availability of staff for election related duties.