The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra state election commission to notify local body elections in the state within four weeks. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh said the contentious issue of OBC reservation in local body polls of Maharashtra will be as it existed prior to the 2022 Banthia Commission report.The top court accepted the commission report which recommended census to fix exact data on OBCs and reserve 27 per seats for the category in local body polls in Maharashtra.The bench on Tuesday fixed a timeline for concluding the local body polls and asked the state panel to conclude it in four months and granted liberty to the state election commission (SEC) to seek more time in appropriate cases.The bench said the outcome of Maharashtra local body elections would be subject to decisions in pending petitions before apex court.
On August 22, 2022, the top court directed the SEC and the Maharashtra government to maintain the status quo with regard to the poll process to the local bodies in the state.
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The top court passed the order on a plea of the Maharashtra government seeking a recall of the apex court order by which it directed the SEC not to re-notify the poll process to 367 local bodies, where it has already begun, in order to provide reservation to OBCs.The state government came out with an ordinance providing 27 per cent reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in local body polls.The government then moved the top court seeking a recall or modification of its order.
The top court on July 28, 2022 warned the state poll panel of contempt action if it re-notified the election process to such local bodies.
The apex court quashed the SEC notification to provide 27 per cent quotas for OBCs in local bodies in 2021 and in December the same year, it ruled reservation for OBCs in local bodies was not be allowed unless the government fulfilled the triple test laid down in the top court’s 2010 order.
The top court ruled the OBC seats would be re-notified as general category seats until then.
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 the commission’s recommendations, and ensure such reservation did not exceed 50 per cent of the total seats reserved for SC/ST/OBC together.
Ninety two municipal councils and four nagar panchayats figured in the list of 367 local bodies where the election process had already been set in motion at the time when statu quo was passed.
There cannot be reservation for these 367 local bodies, the court said.