Daijiworld News Network - Mangalore (GA)

Mangalore, Jul 25: The Karnataka High Court on Monday July 24 once again postponed the hearing to decide the criteria for mayoral election.  With this postponement, it is now quite evident that mayoral elections may not even take place in the first week of August.

As reported earlier, the Court had taken up the case for hearing on Friday July 21.  However, it was later decided to postpone the hearing since advocate general of the state was not present on the day.  So it was decided to take up the case once again on Monday July 24.  But on Monday, the HC judge decided to postpone the hearing to Tuesday.

Advocate General Uday Holla who was present at the court on Monday justified the government's move to change the reservation criteria.  He said that since two out of six city corporations of the state have women as mayor in the fifth or final term of the corporation.  "So reservation criteria for MCC was changed.  However, it has been changed to general category wherein even women can contest," he opined.

Meanwhile advocate Jaykumar Patil, representing the plaintiff Vijaya Arun said that MCC has all the rights to have women as mayor since in the last 4 years men were mayors of the city.

After hearing both the versions, Justice N Kumar asked the government to present the details about the reservation criteria followed in the last ten years and the political interference in this.