In a big setback to the State’s Congress-led UDF Government ahead of the election to the three-tier local bodies, the Kerala High Court on Monday partially nullified its decision to constitute new panchayats by splitting the existing ones. The civic polls have to be held in October and new councils should be in place by November 1 as per normal schedule.
The court’s decision pertained to the panchayats which were formed by splitting revenue villages. A single-judge Bench of the High Court ruled that partitioning one Revenue village between two Panchayats was against the law. It also observed that the Government had not fulfilled procedural obligations while splitting the villages and Panchayats.
As per the order issued by Justice AV Ramakrishna Pillai, while considering the petitions filed by 48 Gram Panchayats, the splitting of about 150 local administrative bodies was in violation of the concerned law. With this, the formation of 68 new Gram Panchayats might become void, legal experts said.
It was alleged that the Congress-led Government had split the existing Revenue villages and Panchayats to constitute new local bodies ahead of the civic polls with political intentions instead of carrying out the process considering the aspects of geography and population. There were reports that the decision was taken under pressure from a particular constituent of the UDF.
What has caused this setback to the UDF Government is the provision of the Panchayati Raj Act which stipulates that a Revenue village should be kept in its entirety in the one Panchayat in which it falls. It is now apparent that required attention had not been given to this when the Government had notified on April 25 the formation of new Panchayats by splitting villages.
The Government notification on the completion of the partitioning of Revenue villages had come only after it had issued the order on splitting the Panchayats. The inclusion of the same Revenue village in the wards of different Panchayats had triggered a huge controversy.
To overcome this problem, the Government issued a notification by identifying the partitioned villages as different entities, an act which could not have been carried out without the prior clearance from the Governor. Justice Ramakrishna Pillai observed that the Government had not taken the Governor’s clearance.
The High Court had last week scrapped the constitution of three new municipalities by taking away the wards of two existing corporations. The CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF had alleged that the formation of new civic bodies was done in such a manner that voters of a particular community would become majority.