Hyderabad, Feb. 15 -- The Telangana High Court issued an order on Friday, February 14, suspending a July 2024 Gazette Notification that sought to bifurcate Kurmapally Village from the Ramachandrapuram Gram Panchayat in Saidapur mandal, Karimnagar district.

Justice T Madhavi Devi, while issuing the order, emphasized that the government cannot bifurcate a village without providing a rationale or justification for such action.

The bifurcation was challenged through a writ petition, where the petitioners argued that creating a new gram panchayat from a lesser-populated village requires a minimum distance of 2 kilometres between the existing and proposed gram panchayats.

In this case, however, the distance was only 500 meters, and despite a...