Stating that the contentious issue of OBC reservation in local body polls of Maharashtra will be as it existed prior to the 2022 report, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra State Election Commission to notify local body elections in the state within four weeks.
The bench 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 the apex court.
PMC, PCMC polls
The five-year term of several local bodies in Maharashtra, including Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), has now ended. Since then, these governing bodies have been under the control of an administrator.
In the Pune Municipal Corporation, the five-year term of the previous elected body ended three years ago, in 2022. Since then, the governing body has been under the control of an administrator.
Thus, now the civic body polls will be held soon.
Various residents and local representatives have been seeking the polls, with complaints about degrading civic amenities flooding the offices.
However, the polls for local bodies in the state are not being conducted due to pending petitions related to civic elections, challenging the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation in the Supreme Court.
In December 2021, the Supreme Court had ruled that reservation for OBCs in local bodies will not be allowed unless the government fulfils the triple test laid down in the apex court’s 2010 order. It had ruled that until the triple test criteria are fulfilled, the OBC seats will 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 the commission’s recommendations, and ensure that such reservation does not exceed 50 percent of the total seats reserved for SC/ST/OBC combined.
