The Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday directed the Election Commission and the Centre to file their counter affidavits explaining the details of allocation of voters in the seven mandals of Khammam district which were transferred to AP in two Assembly segments in the state.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice V. Ramasubramanian was dealing with a petition by former minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy challenging the decision of the EC to conduct Assembly elections without delimiting the constituencies connected to the seven mandals only by an amendment to the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order 2008 as illegal.
Election Commission counsel Avinash Desai said the voters in the seven mandals were merged in two constituencies in AP. Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the EC had no power to merge the voters without following due process under the Delimitation Act.
Asking counsel to place the details of merger of voters, the bench posted the case to October 10.
