The Supreme Court has refused to allow the Telangana government to implement a 42% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in local body elections. The apex court dismissed the state’s petition, which aimed to overturn an interim order from the Telangana High Court that had put the decision on hold. The proposed increase would have taken total reservations to 67%, significantly breaching the 50% threshold.
The bench, comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, clarified that while the state’s plea is dismissed, the High Court is still free to hear and decide the main case on its own merits. Telangana had approached the Supreme Court after the High Court temporarily blocked its plan to raise OBC representation, a move enacted via amendments to the Panchayat Raj and Municipalities Acts in August. The state argued that its increased quota aligns with the Supreme Court’s Indira Sawhney ruling, which allows for reservations exceeding 50% in special situations.
Opposing the state’s argument, lawyers representing the petitioners maintained that the Indira Sawhney judgment’s exceptions are specific to Scheduled Tribes in Fifth Schedule areas and do not apply to political reservations in local government. They also pointed out that the judgment’s primary focus was on reservations in employment and education, not on exceeding the 50% cap for political representation in local bodies.
As a result of the Supreme Court’s dismissal, the ongoing local body elections, which started on October 9, will continue without the 42% OBC reservation being applied. The final resolution of this reservation dispute now rests with the Telangana High Court.