In a landmark judgment, the Kerala High Court has declared the recent delimitation exercise for nine local bodies in Kerala as invalid. The decision, delivered by Justice Mohammed Nias C P, targeted the delimitation conducted under the Kerala Municipality (Second Amendment) Act, 2024, and the Kerala Panchayat Raj (Second Amendment) Act, 2024, citing the use of outdated population data as the basis for the changes.
The court’s ruling came in response to a batch of petitions challenging the government’s decision, which affected eight municipalities and one gram panchayat. Petitioners argued that the alterations were based on the 2011 census figures and thus did not accurately reflect the current demographics, which could potentially disrupt the equitable distribution of representation and resources in these areas.
The judgment highlighted that local bodies had last been structured in 2015, following the census data of 2011. Justice Nias noted that while the government has the authority under Section 6(2) of the Acts to modify the number of seats in local bodies, such modifications must align with the most current and relevant population data. He pointed out that the amendments to Section 6(3), which effectively changed ward boundaries and increased the number of seats, were improperly applied to bodies already delimited in 2015.
