Telangana gets High Court nod to hold civic polls

Hyderabad: Stating that it has not found any reason in the plea of TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy’s plea requesting to stay the election notification for 120 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations, the Telangana High Court on Tuesday allowed the State Election Commission to go ahead with conducting elections to urban local bodies, as per the notice issued on December 23, 2019. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ra-ghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhi-shek Reddy dismissed the public interest litigation filed by the TPCC president, after a day-long hearing of both the petitioner’s side and the contentions of the SEC again-st the issuance of notice on December 23, which went on from the starting hour of the court at 10.30 am till 6 pm, exceeding the court’s closing time. The petitioner initially submitted that the notification issued by SEC on December 23 should be treated as an election notification, but later switched the argument as it was not an election notification, when the bench expressed that its helplessness in giving relief in this plea by recalling the Supreme Court judgment in the case of N.P. It questioned how the SEC could issue two notifications for one election, when the SEC in the arguments had submitted that notification issued on December 23 was issued in terms of Section 195 of the Telangana Municipalities Act and it was going to issue an election notification on January 7.