Calcutta HC Temporarily Bars KMC Poll Notification Under New Ward Map, Finding Administrator Could Not Recommend Delimitation

The appellant challenged a notification dated 11 September 2026 substituting Schedule II of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980 (KMC Act), which altered the boundaries of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) wards.

The KMC had been dissolved on 8 June 2026, and a State-appointed Administrator was given the powers and duties of its members and office-bearers. The appellant alleged that the delimitation was based on an invalid recommendation by the Administrator and sought interim protection in the pending writ petition. The Single Judge directed exchange of affidavits but refused interim relief, prompting this appeal. The appeal was confined to whether interim protection should have been granted

Section 601 of the KMC Act empowers the State Government to amend the Act’s Schedules (other than Schedule I) on its own initiative, while an amendment made on the Corporation’s recommendation is mandatory; the Court treated this distinction as preserving the Corporation’s institutional autonomy.

Sections 5, 117(5) and 118(1)(b) define the Corporation’s composition and provide for an Administrator to discharge the powers and duties of its members and office-bearers during the period following dissolution; the Court held that this interim arrangement does not make the Administrator the Corporation for purposes of a Section 601 recommendation.

Article 243-ZG’s bar on challenges to delimitation laws made or purportedly made under Article 243-ZA was held not to preclude review of this executive action under Section 601.

The Court considered State of U.P. v. Pradhan Sangh Kshettra Samiti, State of Goa v. Fouziya Imtiaz Shaikh and Kishorchandra Chhanganlal Rathod on judicial review of delimitation, and State of M.P. v. Devilal on gerrymandering.

The Court found that the draft amendment had been presented as based on a KMC recommendation, but the Corporation had already been dissolved; the relevant communication was instead from the State-appointed Administrator.

Reading Sections 5, 117 and 118 together, the Court concluded that the Administrator’s interim administrative powers did not extend to exercising the Corporation’s recommendatory function under Section 601. The resulting defect supplied a prima facie basis to challenge the notification.

The Court further held that Article 243-ZG did not bar review because the impugned alteration was executive action under a statute, rather than a law made under Article 243-ZA.

Given the apparent chronology of the steps and the risk that the pending writ could be rendered infructuous, the appellant had made a sufficiently strong prima facie case for interim relief, without the Court finally deciding the writ petition’s merits.

The State Election Commission was restrained from issuing a notification calling an election to the KMC on the basis of the amended Schedule II, as notified on 11 September 2026, until disposal of the pending writ petition. The remaining parts of the Single Judge’s order were left undisturbed; the Court clarified that its observations were tentative and made no order as to costs.