Karnataka High Court directs the State Government not to appoint Administrators to City Municipal Councils until the expiry of their existing term.

The Karnataka High Court has passed an interim order directing the Government not to appoint administrators to City Municipal Councils till their term is over.

Factual background:

Under the Karnataka Municipalities Act, the term of office of the councilors of City Municipal Councils is five years starting from the first meeting to elect President and Vice-President. The term of President and Vice-President is 30 months.

However, after the initial 30 months, the Government did not provide reservation for the post of Chairman and the Vice Chairman for the 2nd term. The reservation process should have commenced much earlier to the expiration of the term of the first and second President and Vice President. The Government did not undertake the exercise well in advance.

This resulted in the appointment of the administrator to the City Municipal Councils for several months, in some cases for more than 16 months. During this period, the entire CMCs did not function under the elected body.

Pursuant to the reservation notification, elections for second term the proceedings were held after 16 months.

Now, the Government has decided to hold elections to the CMCs by appointing an administrator thereby depriving the total tenure of Councilor’s less than 5 years and also depriving duly elected committee of their complete tenure of 30 months.

This action of the Government is challenged by the councilors of various CMCs across the State. One of the contention is that without preparing the voters list, or demarcation of areas or even reservation, there is no point in appointing the administrators thus depriving the elected body from completing its term of five years.

After hearing the petitioners, the High Court has directed the Government not to appoint administrators to CMCs till the term is over. The matters are posted to 16 October 2025 for further hearing.