The Hindu 18.09.2013
Short term for Mayor, deputy and panel members
: The new members and chairpersons of the 12 standing
committees of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will have to
be content with just a seven-month term.
Their term will end on April 24, 2014, the same as that of Mayor B.S. Sathyanarayana and his deputy Indira.
Sources
said the BBMP had sought a legal opinion from the former
Advocate-General Ashok Haranahalli in 2011 about the terms of the
standing committees, which were formed after a delay of five months. In
his opinion on April 18, 2011, Mr. Haranahalli cited the directions of
the Karnataka High Court in a writ petition filed in 1998 on the term of
standing committees.
In the writ petition, sources
said, the High Court had stated that the terms of the standing
committees and Mayors and Deputy Mayors will end on the date of the
election of the first Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Going by this, the terms
of the current Mayor and his deputy and the 12 standing committees will
end on April 24, when the first Mayor S.K. Nataraj assumed office.
Several
committee members are upset about this shortened term, it is said.
“Each one of us will have our own set of plans for the city’s
development and pace of working. We will not be able to achieve anything
in seven months,” said a newly-elected panel member.
M.S. Shivaprasad, chairperson of the Standing Committee for Taxation and Finance, told
The Hindu
that the councillors knew that the term would be a short one. He,
however, conceded that there was some confusion about the term. “The
party may seek a legal opinion. No one is above the law. We will abide
by the law,” he said.
Concurring, Umesh Shetty,
chairperson of the Standing Committee for Town Planning, stated that
they would all abide by the party’s decision and make way for the new
committees in April 2014.
It may be recalled that
though the term of the former Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy and the standing
committees, whose terms are coterminous with that of the Mayor, ended
in April 2013, elections could not be held as the matter regarding
reservation was pending in the court.
Elections to
the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor was held on September 4. Though
elections to the various committees was scheduled on the same day, it
was postponed to September 11 and was eventually held on Monday.
