The Calcutta High Court on Thursday refused to intervene, for the time being, in a petition challenging the ward delimitation of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), leaving the contested redrawing of the city's ward map in place as the civic body heads towards polls expected by the year-end.

Source: IANS via hi INDiA

Under the draft delimitation proposal, the number of KMC wards is slated to rise from 144 to 209. The petition, filed earlier this month, claimed the delimitation exercise was not conducted as per the prescribed rules and that factors such as population, geographical location and administrative consistency were not properly considered in redrawing ward boundaries. These claims are the petitioner's allegations and have not been decided by the court.

Petition kept alive, affidavits ordered

Hearing the matter, the bench of Justice Hiranmaya Bhattacharya did not reject the petition altogether. It directed the West Bengal government to file its affidavit within the next four weeks, after which the petitioner will have two weeks to file a counter-affidavit. The matter will come up for hearing again after six weeks.

Source: Nation Press

The order is the latest development in the delimitation dispute that has shadowed Kolkata's civic poll preparations: as reported earlier, ward-wise rearrangement of voters linked to the delimitation exercise remains incomplete, and polling for seven urban civic bodies in Bengal, including the KMC, is now likely only in December. Thursday's refusal to intervene means the ward realignment decision stays in place while the legal challenge continues.

Source: Urban Acres

The delimitation is the first full redrawing of Kolkata's civic map in decades and will decide the boundaries within which councillors are elected in the coming municipal polls, making the court's eventual ruling on the challenge significant for every party preparing candidates for the enlarged 209-ward corporation.