Congress’s Indira, who is the only councillor of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike hailing for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, will be the next Deputy Mayor of Bangalore in the BJP-ruled BBMP.
This has become possible as the Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed the State government to reserve the post of Deputy Mayor for ST (Women) category, while pointing out that the government has never reserved the post in Bangalore for the ST category in violation of the provisions of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, and the rules governing the reservation of posts by rotation and reservation of posts for the women.
Justice L. Narayanaswamy delivered the verdict while allowing the petitions filed by Congress councillors — Indira and Lokesh V. Nayaka (the only other councillor from ST category) — questioning reservation of the post to Backward Class (A) category. They had claimed that since 1986, neither the post of Mayor nor the Deputy Mayor was reserved for ST category.
The court quashed the government’s notification, issued on February 8, 2013, in which the post was reserved for the BC(A) category. The court directed the government to reserve the post particularly to ST (Woman) as one-third of the posts, even among reserved posts, will have to be reserved for women.
Meanwhile, the court upheld that reservation of the post of mayor to the General category while dismissing the petition filed by two women councillors — Varalakhmi J and Noorjahan — questioning the reservation made for General category by changing the earlier reservation provided for General (Women) category.
This verdict has put an end to almost an year-long battle over reservation provided for these two posts.
On reservation of mayor’s post, the court said that changing the reservation of the post to the General category from the earlier General (Women) was necessitated due to non-availability of Tumkur City Corporation for consideration as per the rotation rules.
