The High Court of Karnataka on Monday ordered issue of notice to the State government on a PIL petition complaining that the new Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020 has rendered ward committees toothless, in clear violation of the mandate of the Constitution of India.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order on the petition filed by C.N. Deepak and Vijayaraghava Marathe, both social activities.
The petitioners have contended that Section 8(b)(ii) of the Act is unconstitutional as it allows inclusion of social workers as members of the council of the BBMP.
They have also questioned creation of additional committees, the constituency consultative committees and zonal committees, in addition to constitutionally mandated ward committees.
“These additional committees have been vested with supervisory, administrative and financial control over the ward committees in the new Act. The vesting of such control with new committee over the ward committees is in violation of Article 243-S of the Constitution,” the petitioners contended while pointing out Article 243-S envisages independent, administrative and financial powers to ward committees, which form part of the third tier of governance.
It has been contended in the petition that Section 86(4) of the Act gives the ward committees only advisory powers in violation of the constitutional provisions, and thereby rendering the councillor-headed ward committees as toothless bodies.
