Renotify OBC seats as general category for urban local body elections’: Patna HC

The two-judge Patna high court also asked the State Election Commission to “review its functioning as an autonomous and independent body, not bound by the dictates of the Government of Bihar”.

PATNA: The Patna high court on Tuesday ordered the state election commission (SEC) to re-notify seats reserved for the other backward classes (OCB) in urban local body elections as general category seats, ruling that the state’s move to reserve seats for OBC without complying with the triple test laid down by the Supreme Court was “illegal”.

State Election Commissioner Dr Dipak Prasad last month announced dates for urban local body elections in Bihar. The high court order will require the watchdog to issue a fresh schedule (HT File Photo)

The high court’s ruling will require the SEC to put off elections to 224 urban local bodies that were scheduled to be held in two phases on October 10 and 20. The process to hold elections for 24 more urban local bodies wasn’t notified due to “technical issues” and was slated to be held at a later date.

The two-judge bench also asked the SEC to “review its functioning as an autonomous and independent body, not bound by the dictates of the Government of Bihar”.

“The State of Bihar has not undertaken any exercise by which the criteria adopted for providing reservations under socio-economic/ educational/ services have been adopted for the purposes of ensuring electoral representation of Other Backward Classes, including Extremely Backward Classes (EBC). As such, we hold… action of the Government as also the (State) Election Commission in reserving the seats for the OBC/EBC category… to be illegal,” the bench of chief justice Sanjay Karol and justice Sanjay Kumar said in its 86-page verdict.

“Our direction, similar in nature, is based on the dictum of the Supreme Court,” the bench added in its ruling on a bunch of petitions filed against the local elections

The Supreme Court laid down the triple test for implementing reservations for OBC in local bodies. This requires that the state constitutes a dedicated OBC Commission, collects data on their backwardness and provides reservation in such a manner that the total reservation in every ward, with Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and OBC reservation put together, does not exceed the 50% ceiling.

The high court noted that the commissions formed under the Backward Classes Act and the Commission for Extremely Backward Classes were formed for purposes independent and distinct from ascertaining political backwardness. “The same were for the purposes of evaluating and computing socially and economically backward castes of any character,” it said.

The high court also put the spotlight on the large number of overlapping statutes muddying the waters rather than facilitating smooth functioning of providing reservations and asked Bihar to “consider enacting a comprehensive legislation pertaining to reservations in elections to local bodies, urban or rural, to bring the State seamlessly in line with the directions issued by apex court”.