Though the Supreme Court has already set a 3-month deadline to complete elections to the BBMP, a fresh round of litigation was initiated before the Karnataka High Court on Friday by the Karnataka State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The petitioner has sought directions to put on hold the issuance of the calendar of events for the elections, and for carrying out delimitation of wards as per the population and reservation of wards for SCs and STs based on the 2011 population census. The commission claimed that holding elections by reserving seats based on 2001 population would seriously affect the rights of people belonging to SC and ST communities as their population, particularly in the areas newly added to the city, would be impacted.
After hearing the petition, Justice Raghavendra S. Chauhan suggested to the State government to approach the single judge, which on March 30, 2015 had issued orders for holding elections based on delimitation carried out using 2001 census data, to seek clarification on the issue raised by the petitioner.
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The March 30 order was quashed by a division bench, but restored by the Supreme Court in May. The population of SCs had increased to 11,98,385 in 2011 from 8,51,047 in 2001; and population of STs increased to 1,90,239 in 2011 from 86,018 in 2001, the commission claimed.