THULASI BAI Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, who are members of Biskuru Grama Panchayat of Magadi Taluk, are aggrieved of the impugned notification dtd. 14/6/2023, wherein respondent No.3- Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer has reserved the post of Adhyaksha of the Grama Panchayat for category 'A' (Woman) and the post of Upadhyaksha for General category. It is contended by the petitioners that the previous reservation of General category which was given to the post of Adhyaksha and category 'A' (Woman) was given to the post of Upadhyaksha, has now been reversed and therefore, in all probability, the member who was previously elected as Adhyaksha and Upadhyaksha will be re-elected interchanging the posts. Moreover, it is submitted that although there are 3 members of the Grama Panchayat belonging to Scheduled Caste category, nevertheless, till date commencing from 1993 to 2020-21, Scheduled Caste reservation was never given to the post of Adhyaksha.

(2.) Learned Additional Advocate General would submit that the Deputy Commissioner has followed the guidelines which is in the form of a Government Order dtd. 25/5/2023, which provides that the rotation in reservation shall commence from the Scheduled Caste category. Thereafter, the rotation in reservation of the Scheduled Tribes category is taken up, followed by category 'A', then category 'B' and thereafter General category. Insofar as the claim of the petitioners for assigning Scheduled Caste category to the post of Adhyaksha, the learned Additional Advocate General submits that in the year 2015 Scheduled Caste (Woman), reservation was given to the post of Adhyaksha of the Grama Panchayat. Earlier too, in the year 2000 (II term) reservation of Scheduled Caste (Woman) was given to the post of Adhyaksha in the Grama Panchayat. Therefore, it would not be right on the part of the petitioners to contend that the Scheduled Caste reservation was never given to the Grama Panchayat. It may be true that in both the rounds, Scheduled Caste (Woman) was given and Scheduled Caste reservation may not have been given to the Grama Panchayat, however, for the present term, it would be impossible to reserve the post of Adhyaksha to the Scheduled Caste category, since in the year 2015 Scheduled Caste (Woman) reservation was already given to the Grama Panchayat. There are 32 Grama Panchayats in the Taluk and 6 seats of Scheduled Castes are available in the Taluk. Therefore, in the first step taken up by the Deputy Commissioner to identify the Grama Panchayats which were previously given Scheduled Caste reservation, if the Deputy Commissioner found that in the year 2015, Scheduled Caste (Woman) was given to the Adhyaksha of the Grama Panchayat, then having regard to the number of posts reserved for Scheduled Caste category and 32 numbers of Grama Panchayats, the rotation in reservation would commence from the Grama Panchayats which had earlier not received the reservation and go further depending on the number of posts reserved to the Grama Panchayats in the Scheduled Caste category. In the cycle of rotation, it would be impossible for the petitioners to expect repetition of Scheduled Caste category reservation within a span of two terms, since by the sheer number it may take five terms for the rotation to complete in the category of Scheduled Caste.

(3.) Learned Additional Advocate General submits that commencing from the year 2020, a computer system known as GPPVP application is put in place for rotation in reservation and human intervention is not permissible. Learned Additional Advocate General would therefore submit the Deputy Commissioner has followed the guidelines which is in the form of a Government Order dtd. 25/5/2023 which provides the method and steps which are required to be followed.