The Telangana high court on Wednesday directed the Revanth Reddy government and the state election commission to conduct the local body elections in the state within 90 days, people familiar with the matter said.
A single-judge bench of the high court, headed by justice T Madhavi Devi, asked the state election commission to conduct the gram panchayat elections within three months and the state government to complete the delimitation of wards for reservations within 30 days.
The term of the local bodies, including 12,845 gram panchayats, 5,817 mandal parishad territorial constituencies and 538 zilla parishad territorial constituencies, ended on January 30 last year, and since then, these local bodies have been under the administration of special officers.
Acting on a batch of petitions filed by several former sarpanches, who challenged the inaction on holding the elections to the rural and urban local bodies, the judge asked why the state government and the state election commission had not acted in time.
The petitioners argued that the government had appointed special officers to run the administration which, they said, was unconstitutional and against the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act. “These special officers are preoccupied with other duties and are not responsive to local issues,” they said.
They added that many sarpanches had used their personal funds for development, based on government assurances of financial support via the State Finance Commission. “Now, these funds have not materialised, causing hardship. The central funds under various schemes have also not been received for want of elected bodies,” they said.
The petitioners urged the court to direct immediate election proceedings or restore administrative powers to former sarpanches.
Additional Advocate General Imran Khan argued that as per a Supreme Court ruling, elections can only proceed after finalising OBC reservations. He requested one more month to complete this process.
Senior advocate G Vidyasagar, representing the state election commission, said that finalisation of reservations for the OBCs and delimitation of wards was the government’s responsibility. Once the government completes it, the state election commission (SEC) would begin the process, which may take two more months, he said.
The judge intervened and cited a Supreme Court directive, which said that if the government fails to act in time, the election commission should take the initiative and sought to know why the SEC had not done it.
The SEC counsel reiterated that the government’s delay in reservation and related groundwork was the core issue. After hearing all arguments, the court ruled that the gram panchayat elections must be conducted within three months.
