High Court Stays BC Reservations In Local Body Elections

In a setback to the Congress government, the Telangana High Court today granted an interim stay on the State's GO No 9, which provided 42% reservations for Backward Classes (BCs) in the local body elections.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe passed the interim order after hearing arguments from both sides for two days.

The court directed the State government to file a detailed counter-affidavit within four weeks, and the petitioners were asked to file their replies within two weeks thereafter. The matter was adjourned for six weeks.

As a result, the implementation of BC reservations in the local body elections has been stayed, and the election notification issued earlier in the day has been put on hold. The local body election process in Telangana thus remains temporarily suspended.

During the hearing, Advocate General B Sudarshan Reddy submitted that the Legislative Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution to conduct a BC population survey, which found that BCs constituted 57.6% of Telangana's population. Based on these findings, the government decided to provide 42% reservations to BCs, he said.

Senior advocate Ravi Varma argued that there was no 50% ceiling on reservations in the Constitution. He said that BCs, SCs and STs together made up about 85% of the total population, and even with 42% reservations for BCs, 33% of seats remained open to the remaining 15% of the population.

After hearing both sides, the bench granted an interim stay and adjourned the case for further hearing.