Gujarat High Court reserves verdict on civic poll

GANDHINAGAR - The Gujarat High Court Thursday reserved its verdict till Monday on a petition challenging the election process of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).

While hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging a provision for multiple elected representatives from a ward in the AMC, the court asked the state government under which provisions of the constitution it was claiming to have powers to notify the number of seats in a ward.

A division bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Justice Akil Kureshi said: “Prima facie, it appears that the constitution has empowered you to notify territorial areas but the composition of the wards is not delegated to you. It lies with the constitution.”

The court reserved its order in the case and is likely to deliver the verdict Monday.

Petitioner Pankajsinh Waghela challenged the arrangement of having multi-member wards in the civic agency.

He submitted that three people are elected as representatives of one ward. Three votes are cast by a voter for election of three people in a single ward.

The petition said that only one representative should be elected from one constituency.

He said that in any elected agency, a constituency is represented by an individual and the rule of “one member one vote” is followed.

However, in the AMC there are 192 seats which are bifurcated into 64 wards, he said.