Greater Bengaluru Governance Act Renders BBMP 'A Shell Without Any Powers': Petitioners Tell Karnataka High Court In PIL Against 2024 Law

During the hearing of a PIL challenging the constitutionality of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act 2024, the petitioners told the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday (April 1) that the Act has left elected body like Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike futile and left the latter with only a shell without any powers. Appearing for petitioners–T S Nagabharana, Prakash Belawedi and others–Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan delved on how the Greater Bengaluru Authority, an unelected body constituted under the impugned Act has all the functional, financial and administrative powers whereas the elected municipal corporations would be merely discharging their duties with no real powers.The senior counsel also told the division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C.M Poonacha that the impugned Act virtually negates the object of the 74th and 75th Constitutional Amendments. “By virtue of the amendments, functional and financial autonomy were to given to municipalities but the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act has created a body which virtually takes over powers of the municipal council”, he said.Vaidyanathan argued that Section 111 of the Act–which sets out the powers and functions of the City Corporations, only vests in them nominal powers due to the overarching powers of GBA which virtually takes away those powers.“Therefore, a nominal homage to the constitutional provisions doesn't do justice because powers are not given to the corporations…The Constitution envisages elected members to discharge these functions and hold such powers so that grassroots democracy would prevail…If any real meaning has to given to section 111(2), these other impugned sections must be struck down and what remains, the court has to see,” he said. “With the constitution of GBA, the state government has postponed the elections, made BBMP futile and virtually took over the financial functions and left only a shell to elected body without any powers”, Vaidyanathan said about the Act and the Authority under it. He walked the court through Part IX A[Municiplaities] inserted by the 74th Constitutional Amendment and submitted that the last held election to the Municipal Council was in 2015 despite the directions issued by the Supreme Court. He further added that even if an election is scheduled and conducted as per the apex court order by June 30,2026, the municipilaties will be left with absolutely no powers with the advent of GBA.Vaidyanathan also discussed in detail various provisions like Article 243(c), (za), (zd), (ze),(d), (q), (r), (s), (u) etc. of the Constitution that talks about metropolitan area, municipal area, municipality as an institution of self-governance, mode of constitution of municiplaities, metropolitan area planning, right to vote, duration of municipalities, constitution of ward committee, elections to be held etc.All the aforesaid provisions underscore the importance of having an elected body to replace another elected body whose term is coming to an end, he said. He added that the stature of self-governing body would be rendered futile if the self-government does not have any financial planning or administrative powers. The notification that constituted Greater Bengaluru Authority indicates that it has the strength of 86 members out of which the elected members are only 5 in numbers who are mayors. Rest of them are various MPs, MLAs, MLCs, Ministers etc which indicates that the majority in the GBA body is held by the government itself, argued the counsel. He also mentioned briefly about the 12th schedule introduced by the 74th amendment and the functional items for self-governance under this list such as urban planning, town planning-construction of buildings, roads and bridges, water supply, public health, sanitation fire services, urban forestry, safeguarding weaker sections of society etc. He argued that GBA will now have the final say in such matters including on the utilisation of funds given by Finance Commission.He also mentioned various provisions in the Act that are allegedly problematic and confers upon GBA unchecked powers in contravention of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976.“…Section 11[of GBA Act] is what is being relied upon in regard to th function. The govt shall appoint additional officers to assist chief commissioner….Effectively, all the appointment, terms and conditions of the service will be dictated by the government. Patna High Court has addressed a similar issue and said you can't take away the powers of elected councils…Functions as per the constitution and as per the schedule of the act will be entrusted to third party agencies effectively… Effectively, government controls the day to day functions”, the senior counsel noted that as per Section 13 of the Act, not even a single elected member, including the mayo, is a member of the executive committee of GBA.“Section 19 of the Act erodes the power of the municipality completely…These unelected bodies are now going to issue ...

Greater Bengaluru Governance Act Renders BBMP 'A Shell Without Any Powers': Petitioners Tell Karnataka High Court In PIL Against 2024 Law

Sebin James

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