Gujarat high court rejects plea challenging AMC poll process

The Gujarat high court on Friday rejected a petition filed by Pankanjsinh Waghela challenging the election process of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. In the petition, Waghela alleged that the process is unconstitutional, however the court held that it is not ultra vires.

A division bench of chief justice SJ Mukhopadhaya and justice Akil Kureshi heard the petition.

Waghela had challenged the election process of the civic body. Counsel for the petitioner, Yatin Oza, had submitted before the court that the election process was in violation of generally accepted principle of "one man-one vote".

The petition stated that for one ward, three persons are elected as representatives. However, only one representative should be elected from one ward as per the Constitution.

In Ahmedabad city corporation, there are 192 seats from which representatives are elected to manage the civic affairs in 64 wards, the petitioner claimed. As in the present scenario, in each ward, three people are elected as representative of one single territorial constituency and therefore three votes are cast by one person for election of the three people to one post.