Karnataka High Court fixes Dec. 7 for holding elections to KSCA

The High Court of Karnataka on Friday set aside the notification issued by the Electoral Officer (EO) postponing the elections to the managing committee of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) and ordered holding elections on December 7 by modifying the calender for elections, and requested Subash B. Adi, a former judge of the court, to supervise the elections.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order while allowing the petitions filed by the KSCA and B.K. Ravi, one of the members of the KSCA’s managing committee.

What petitioners said

The petitioners had questioned the communication issued by the EO on November 17 stating that elections, scheduled for November 30, had been postponed to December 30 by stating that ‘elections cannot be conducted at this stage without removing doubts among members’ related to the KSCA’s by-laws.

However, the petitioners have contended that delay in conduct of elections would impact the cricket players from Karnataka as they would not be considered for various tournaments in the absence of duly elected body for the association.

As petitioners and other intervening members of the KSCA, some of whom had approached the civil court on issues related to by-laws, have consented that elections could be held as early as possible, and agreed to the court’s suggestion for the conduct of elections on December 7. Even the advocate, representing the EO, told the court that the EO is ready to hold elections on December 7.

Following this, the court quashed the EO’s November 17 communication of postponing the elections, and modified the calender of events by sustaining the already received nominations for various positions.

Timeline

As per the court order, scrutiny of already filed nomination papers would be held on November 24 between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.; list of valid candidates would be announced on November 24 before 6 p.m.; time for withdrawal of candidature on November 26 before 3 p.m.; announcement of eligible/contesting candidates on November 26 by 5 p.m., elections will be held on December 7 between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. followed by declaration of results.

Meanwhile, the court observed that ‘it hopes and believes that the elections would be conducted in a fair/open/transparent manner without any disturbances’.