Local Body Elections Can Move Forward With Old System: High Court

Hyderabad, Oct 11 (Maxim News): The Telangana High Court has said that the Election Commission can proceed with the elections to the expired local bodies as per the old procedure as the government has stayed the orders issued by it providing 42 percent reservation to BCs.

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It has been said that the reservation should not exceed 50 percent. It has been said that if there are no conditions to conduct a triple test in the state and union territories when the term of local bodies is over, the Election Commission can notify those proportional seats as open category seats and go for elections, it has been clarified that the Supreme Court had issued an interim order in the rahul Ramesh Wagh case in 2022.

Accordingly, since this court has stayed the 42 percent GO, it has clarified that the proportional seats can be notified under the open category and go ahead with the local body elections.

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It is known that a bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh kjumar Singh and Justice G.M.Mohiuddin had stayed the petitions filed challenging GO 9, which provided 42 percent reservation for BCs, GO 41 and 42, which were issued regarding the election process, and the election schedule notification. The full text of these orders was made available on Friday midnight.

What the bench said in ity is, “Considering the Vikas Kishan Rao Gawali case, we are issuing interim orders staying GO 9, 41 and 42. We do not express any opinion on all the issues raised by the respondents. The elections can go ahead.

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However, the reservation should not exceed 50 percent. Proportional seats should be notified as open category and elections should be held. The government issued GO 9 providing 42 percent reservation for BCs. due to this, the reservation will reach 67 percent.

Before the issuance of GO, there was a total of 50 percent reservation of 16 per cent for SCs, 10 percent for STs and 25 percent for BCs. Which is within the 50 percent limit imposed by the Supreme Court in the Vikas Kishan Rao Gawali case. Before providing reservations to OBCs. The triple test procedure mentioned in the Krishnamurthy case must be strictly implemented.

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The state government argued that a special commission was constituted to conduct a survey on backward classes in the state in accordance with the triple test and reservations were provided based on the commission’s report. It argued that the 50 percent limit for SC, ST and BC is not a strict rule and there is flexibility to modify it.

In support of this argument, it brought to our attention the cases of Indra Swahney and Janhit Abhiyan, which provided 10 percent reservation for the economically weaker sections.

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It said that the Supreme Court had stated in the M.R.Balaji case that the 50 percent limit was not mandatory and that exceptions could be made in special circumstances for backward areas like the North-Eastern states.

“After considering all the judgments of the Supreme court, this bench is of the view that the government failed to implement the 50 percent limit laid down in the Vikas Kishan Rao Gawali case before issuing GOPs 9, 41 and 42,” it said. The bench held that the Election Commission did not interfere with the election process issued on September 29 under Article 243o of the Constitution.

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It said that this court did not stay the election process. It said that in these petitions, only the GO issued providing 42 percent reservation and GO 41 and 42 issued for subsequent process have been stayed until the dispute is resolved. (Maxim News)

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