Many more petitions have been filed in the Karnataka High Court questioning whether members of Parliament and legislators have the right to vote while electing mayor and deputy mayor. Two separate public interest litigation (PIL) petitions and two writ petitions have been filed in the last couple of days in addition to the first petition filed by five women BBMP councillors-elect belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Initially, Prameela M. and four other BJP councillors-elect filed an appeal urging the court to declare section 7 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 as ‘unconstitutional’ as it gives voting right to MPs and legislators besides councillors-elect.
Now, these petitioners have amended their plea seeking a declaration by the court that Article 243R of the Constitution, which gives representation to MPs, MLAs and MLCs in a city municipality or municipal corporations, does not include the right to vote in the elections to select president and vice-president, and mayor and deputy mayor of a municipality and a city corporation respectively.
They contended that allowing MPs and legislators elect mayor and deputy mayor would defeat the very concept of decentralisation of power introduced by the 74th amendment to the Constitution that giving more powers to the directly elected councillors. Justice Raghavendra S. Chauhan, before whom all the petitions, except PIL petitions, came up for hearing on Tuesday adjourned the hearing till Wednesday as a senior counsel appearing for a group of petitioners could not attend the hearing on medical grounds.
Meanwhile, a Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice B.V. Nagarathna adjourned the hearing on the PILs while making it clear that pendency of the PILs would not come in the way of hearing of other petitions by the Single Judge Bench.
PILs to be heard today
