Karnataka HC Quashes Petition Against Reservation Made For President & Vice President In Gram Panchayat Elections

A Karnataka High Court Bench of Justice Suraj Govindaraj has dismissed a writ petition filed against the reservation made for the post of President (Adhyaksha) and Vice President (Upadhyaksha) in a Gram Panchayat.

Counsel Gourish S Khashampur appeared for the petitioner, while HCGP Maya TR, among others, appeared for the respondents.

In this case, a writ petition was filed, praying for the quashing of a term President and Vice President of a taluk regarding the reservation of an ST female for the post of the Adhyaksha of a gram panchayat. Notably, the entire reservation needed to be done in terms of Section 44(2) of the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act, 1993.

It was submitted that people belonging to certain categories were deprived of the reservation they were entitled to. It was further submitted that the reservation made exceeded the 50% permissible reservation mandated by the statute, and that there was a repetition in the rotation of roster reservation.

The Court framed the following issues and answered them accordingly.

(i) Whether there is any discrimination in the reservation made of the posts for President and Vice President by the Election Commission?

The Court referred to the formula adopted by the Election Commission to determine the applicable number of reserved seats. The formula involved considering the total Rural population of the State, total rural SC population, and total ST population to arrive at the number of posts to be reserved by considering the total number of posts available.

The Court held that the formula did not suffer from any infirmity. Following the same, the Court ascertained the number of posts to be reserved in each of the talukas based on the variables of SC and ST population of that particular taluka.

Affirming the "population per post" formula, i.e., "The total population of a category/No.of posts determined for that category", the Court held that no discrimination was made in the reservation of the posts for President and Vice President by the Election Commission.

(ii) Whether by reserving posts for both SC and ST category, which in totality would exceed 50%, could there be said to be in violation of mandate of Clause (a) of Subsection (2) of Section 44 of the Act?

The Court observed that the excess was due to the rounding off of numbers. In that context, it was said that "a deeper examination indicates otherwise since in terms of Clause (c) of Subsection (2) of Section 44 of the Act, the per category reservation has to be fixed at not less than 50% and if 5.82 or 4.64 were to be rounded to the lower number, it would come to less than 50% of each category. As such, rounding off to ‘6’ and ‘5’ cannot be found fault with. The posts to be manned by individuals the decimals can only be given effect to by rounding off to a whole number since a human being cannot be divided into lesser than a whole number."

Considering the submission that there was a possibility of repetition, more so since it was the 10th round of reservation, the Court permitted the petitioners to submit a representation to the respondent for the consideration of rotation as much as possible.

In light of the same, it was observed that there was no violation of the Act.

iii) Whether in the present case there is any discrimination and or excess reservation requiring interference at the hands of this Court?

The Court observed that the issue was to be considered by the Election Commission. In that vein, it was said that "as also the Deputy Commissioner fix the rotation without reference to the population of the taluka, but, however reference would have to be taken to the candidates who have been elected per category to each of the Gram Panchayat insofar as Adhyaksha and Upadhyaksha of that Gram Panchayat is concerned".

Consequently, the writ petition was dismissed.

Cause Title: Sri Shivanand vs The State of Karnataka & Ors.

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