Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has dismissed some petitions that challenged the fresh reservations at municipalities which will go to the polls soon.
In a petition challenging the reservation of Ward 3 of Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC), the petitioner had pleaded that the ST population in the MMC is less than in other wards despite which the Director of Municipal Administration reserved this ward for ST category. He called the reservation as “absurd, unconstitutional, and unreasonable”.
Of 20 wards, only one is reserved for ST despite other wards having higher percentage of ST population, the petitioner alleged. However, upon hearing all the parties, the bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Mahesh Sonak ruled out that Director of the Municipal Administration had committed any error.
“We do not think that the Director has committed any error in reserving one seat out of the total 20 seats at MMC in favour of ST category. The circumstance that the population of ST in the MMC area is quite small does not mean that they are not entitled to reservation of even one seat so that their interests are adequately represented in the governance of the MMC. This is therefore not a case of manifest arbitrariness or non-application of mind as contended by the petitioner,” the court observed while dismissing the petition.
Another writ petition challenging the reservation at Mormugao Municipality was also dismissed by the division bench.
