The Orissa High Court has, in an interim order, has stayed the Kendrapada district administration’s notification for reservation of seats and fresh delimitation of the municipality wards till June 23.
Two Councillors Muktar Khan (Ward-15) and Kaliprasad Mishra (Ward- I), lawyer Dhruba Jena and three others have filed separate petitions before the HC challenging the notification issued on April 30 on division of the municipality in wards and reservation of seats.
The HC taking the cognizance of the writ petition has issued the stay order.
Khan in his petition has stated that the appellate authority has passed an order to divide the municipality area into wards afresh keeping in view the equitable distribution of population and reserve the seats as per the provisions of the Orissa Municipal Act 1950. Besides, it directed that the amendment made in the year 2012 about reservation for two terms shall not be applicable in case of ensuing election to Kendrapada municipality.
Notably, the Kendrapada Municipality council term is going to be completed on November 26, 2016. In this backdrop, the District Magistrate had on February 1 issued a draft notification seeking grievances to the proposed delimitation and seat reservations. But the grievances were not properly taken into consideration before issuance of the final notification, according to allegations.
