Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Jun 23: The division bench of the state high court (HC) has dismissed an appeal filed by six members of the city municipal council here against cancellation of their memberships of the council for violating whip issued by their party.

As a result, Nellikatte Jagadish Shetty, Navinchandra Naik, Seema Gangadhar, Rekha Yashodhar, Deeksha Pai and Kamala Anand have lost their membership of the council.

When the town was under the administration of town municipal council in 2014, during the election of municipal president, six Congress councillors had defied the whip issued by the party to vote for official candidate of the party, H Muhammed Ali. Ali had filed a case in the court of the district deputy commissioner seeking disqualification of the memberships of the councillors who voted for a candidate other than the party's official candidate.

The court of the deputy commissioner, through a verdict delivered on May 7, 2015, had annulled the membership of these six councillors. The members had filed appeal against this verdict in the HC but the HC too upheld the decision of the deputy commissioner's court. The group then filed appeal questioning the single judge bench order through the division bench of the HC. The bench had stayed operation of the earlier order for eight weeks when admitting the appeal.

However, the bench, which completed hearing in the case, has dismissed the appeal itself. Reacting to this judgment, Nellikatte Jagadish Shetty said that all the six persons will together discuss about future course of action in the light of this adverse verdict. H Muhammed Ali, city municipal councillor, who had complained against these six councillors, expressed happiness at the fact that he has won the judicial battle.