Hyderabad High Court takes up merger of civic bodies
They told the court that the government had adopted the pick and choose method in selecting the panchayats for merger.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday commenced hearing of a batch of petitions challenging the Act 4 of 2018 for merging certain gram panchayats into municipal corporations and municipalities.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice S.V. Bhatt was hearing the petitions filed by former sarpanches, mandal and zilla parishad territorial committee members from Karimnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Khammam and Hyderabad districts.
The petitioners’ counsels submitted that the government had brought the Act 4 of 2018 by incorporating Section 3 to the Telangana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 to merge the villages. This was contrary to the guidelines under Article 243(Q) of the Constitution.
They told the court that the government had adopted the “pick and choose” method in selecting the panchayats for merger. The bench posted the case to Thursday for the arguments of the state government.