No notification for Kolkata civic polls till disposal of ward delimitation plea says Calcutta HC

Kolkata, Nov 6 (PTI) A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday restrained the West Bengal State Election Commission from issuing a notification for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election till a single bench disposes of a plea on ward delimitation.

    The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has undertaken a revision of municipal ward boundaries ahead of the next civic polls. As part of the plan, the number of wards in the civic body may rise to 209 from 144.

    A petitioner has challenged the delimitation exercise, seeking a declaration that the entire exercise of determination of the number of KMC wards is void and the quashing of the September 11 notification.

    A vacation bench of the high court, comprising Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Arjun Ray Mukherjee, directed the State Election Commission (SEC) not to issue a notification to hold an election to the KMC till the disposal of a petition pending before a single bench.

    Petitioner Dipu Das, a former CPI(M) councillor of KMC, claimed that the KMC had no elected council, and the civic body's former chairperson Smita Pandey had been appointed its administrator after the House's dissolution on June 8.

    The petitioner also sought an interim order of stay of operation of the delimitation notification and to restrain the SEC from issuing any notification calling an election to the KMC.

    The single bench had on October 29 refused an interim stay as prayed for by the petitioner, while calling for affidavits from the parties in the matter. Aggrieved by the refusal, Das moved the division bench.

    The petitioner alleged that the delimitation exercise has been undertaken based on electoral rolls instead of the actual population, thereby excluding a substantial number of residents from consideration.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)