Hyderabad: Justice A. Rajashekar Reddy of Telangana High Court has told the state government to file individual counters, rather than a common counter on all writ petitions filed seeking a stay on municipal elections.
The court was dealing with a batch of 77 petitions, which have been pending for four months after the court issued interim orders putting off elections to 75 municipalities until compilation of the municipal rules before holding the polls.
The court opined that when it issued the interim orders based on facts of each petition, it would not be appropriate for the state government to file a common counter to the 77 different petitions filed with regard to the 75 municipalities. The batch of petitions had been filed last July alleging that the entire pre-poll process prior to holding the elections had not been carried out as per the Telangana Municipal Rules. At that time, the single bench of Justice P. Naveen Rao had stayed issuance of civic poll notifications for the 75 municipalities. It directed the government to issue notifications only after following the due process.
