Ashok B. Hinchigeri, J

In all these petitions the allotment of the posts of Presidents and Vice-Presidents of City Municipal Councils, Town Municipal Councils and Town Panchayats to particular categories are challenged. I proceed to consider the general submissions first and thereafter consider the specific contentions with reference to each of the petitions.

2. Sriyuths Jayakumar S. Patil, the Learned Senior Counsel appearing for /Is. Jayakumar S. Patil Associates, A.S. Ponnanna, M.V. Hiremath, S.S. Koti, Y. Lakshmikanth Reddy, N. Ravindranath Kamath, K. Shashikiran Shetty,:appearing for the petitioners Urged the following contentions:

(i) The list allotting the posts of Presidents and Vice-Presidents of various Urban Local Bodies [U.L.B.s for short] is drawn so as to favour a particular party, namely, the Indian National Congress party. Its leader, Sri Mallikarjuna Kharge has written a letter on 18th October, 2007 to Sri Subhash Chandra, Secretary, Urban Development Department seeking the fixation of categories of his choice. Further Sri Siddunyama Gowda, a former Union Minister has also sent a letter dated 31st December, 2007 to the Additional Secretary, Urban Development Department in this regard.

(ii) The reservation list made by the erstwhile Government led by the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Sri H.D. Kumaraswamy is cancelled.

(iii) As per Rule 13(2) of Karnataka Municipalities (President and Vice-President) Election Rules, the reservation process has to start with Scheduled Tribe category and not with Scheduled Caste category.

(iv) The guidelines are issued without issuing the draft notifications calling for the objections from the public. Therefore the guidelines cannot be acted upon.

3. The learned Advocate General, Sri B. V. Acharya, replied as follows:

(i) The number of posts of Presidents and Vice-Presidents are fixed in proportion to their population in the State for each type of U.L.B. This is done first for SC/ST categories followed by other categories. One third of the total number of Presidents and Vice-Presidents are reserved for women.

(ii) The cycle of rotation of offices is reckoned from 1st June, 1994, the date of publication of the Karnataka Municipalities (President and Vice- President) Election Rules, 1995. The ensuing elections to the offices of the President and Vice-President are for the fifth term.

(iii) The reservations are made in respect of ten categories, namely, SC, SC(W), ST, ST(W), BCA, BCA(W), BCB, BCB(W), G and G(W) separately for Presidents and Vice-Presidents (the full form of abbreviations being Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Caste (Woman), Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Tribe (Woman), Backward Class A, Backward Class A (Woman), Backward Class B, Backward Class B (Woman), General, General (Woman) for SC, SC(W), ST, ST(W), BCA, BCA(W), BCB, BCB(W), G and G(W) respectively). In respect of SC/ST categories, the U.L.B.s are arranged in the decreasing order of percentage of population of respective category; posts are reserved on the principle of rotation. Thereafter a combined list of all U.L.B.s in alphabetical order in English Language is prepared indicating the points fixed for SC(W)/ST/SC/ST(W). From this list, reservation of posts for other categories is done following the cycle BCAW->G->BCBW->G->BCA->GW->BCB.

(iv) There is no discretion whatsoever in the matter of reserving the posts, as everything had to be done and is done as per the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, the Rules framed thereunder and the guidelines contained in the Notification, dated 23rd January, 2008. He has also produced a consolidated chart containing the recommendations of leaders belonging to different political Parties for reserving particular posts of particular U.L.B.s for particular categories. He drew my attention to the recommendations made and the reservation now provided to buttress his submission that the State Government has not considered the representation of any political party.

(v) As far as the submission o