E-Paper
Supreme Court gives nod to OBC reservation in Maharashtra local body elections
The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted the recommendations of the Banthia commission to apply 27 per cent OBC reservations in local body elections in Maharashtra, and directed that election for local bodies in the state be notified in the next two weeks.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted the recommendations of the Banthia commission to apply 27 per cent OBC reservations in local body elections in Maharashtra, and directed that election for local bodies in the state be notified in the next two weeks.
Both, the Shinde-BJP government and the opposition parties in Maharashtra, welcomed the Court’s decision.
In December 2021 the Supreme Court had directed that reservation for OBCs in local bodies will not be permitted unless they fulfil the triple test laid down in the SC’s own 2010 decision. The top court had even directed that until the triple test is fulfilled, the OBC seats would be re-notified as general category seats.
The triple test required the state government to set up a dedicated commission to gather data on the backwardness of OBCs in every local body, to specify the proportion of reservation in each local body in light of commission’s recommendations, and finally to ensure that such reservation does not exceed 50% of the total seats reserved in favour of SC/ST/OBC taken together.
In response to the Court’s order the MVA government had set up the commission led by former chief secretary Jayant Banthia and asked him to collate the data required by the Court. The commission had submitted its report on July 7 after which the new Maharashtra government moved Court for permission to hold elections to local bodies incorporating the revised OBC reservation. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court also made clear that the new reservation criterion will not be applicable to the 367 local bodies where the election process had already commenced.
“As on today, in 367 local bodies, election programme has commenced and the same will be continued and taken to its logical conclusion,” ruled the bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, AS Oka and JB Pardiwala. “As regards the remaining local bodies,” the SC held, “we direct the state election commission and state authorities to ensure the election process be immediately commenced.” The elections, the Court reiterated should be based on the delimitation of seats that existed as on March 10, 2022.
Senior advocate Vinay Navare appearing for an intervenor urged the Court that elections should await a fresh delimitation exercise which the court rejected. “Sometimes there is the excuse of delimitation, sometimes monsoon is cited for not holding elections. How can elections be postponed indefinitely? There is a constitutional requirement to fill these posts. All ifs and buts must stop.”
The Court further made clear that the correctness of the Banthia commission’s report will be open for challenge only on the grounds permissible in law.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for Maharashtra had submitted that the report by the Banthia commission fulfilled the triple test and the election commission should be directed to provide reservation to OBC in local bodies on the basis of its report.
On July 12, while dealing with the state’s application, the Court had asked the state election body to inform them about the municipal bodies where the election process had already begun without going into the correctness of the report. Earlier this year, the top court had allowed Madhya Pradesh to have OBC reservation in local bodies after a similar exercise was undertaken and an expert report was tabled before the state government on the district-wise population of OBCs for the purposes of reservation in local bodies.
