The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the State of Maharashtra to conduct local body elections in the state, providing reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) as per the law existing before the July 2022 report of the JK Banthia Commission.
The Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice NK Singh directed the State Election Commission to notify the local body elections within four weeks and complete the whole poll process preferably within four months.
It further granted liberty to the Election Commission to seek extension of time, in case the need arose.
Noting that the elections would be subject to the outcome of the petitions challenging the Banthia Commission, the top court of the country said the order would not prejudice the contentions raised by the parties.
The elections were deferred in Maharashtra after the Supreme Court ordered a status quo in August 2022 on OBC reservations in local bodies.
The Bench recorded in its order that the constitutional mandate of grassroots democracy through periodical elections to local bodies ought to be respected and ensured.
Since the elected bodies have a prescribed term, no irreversible loss would be caused to those seeking an appropriate amendment to the existing laws for inclusion or exclusion of certain OBC communities. All those issues could be considered in due course of time, it added.
The Apex Court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Maharashtra government, why elections of local bodies could not be held in the state as per law without prejudice to the contentions of the petitioners.
Strongly disapproving the trend of bureaucrats occupying all the Municipal Corporations & Panchayats and taking major policy decisions, the Bench observed that because of all this litigation, a complete democratic process has been stalled. Officers had no accountability, it added.
Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising submitted that elections should not be held as per the Banthia Commission’s report as 34,000 seats meant for OBCs were de-reserved.
The SG submitted that the state had no difficulty in conducting the elections as proposed by Jaising.
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan, appearing in a new writ petition filed in 2025, said that without any study of political backwardness, reservation had been automatically applied to the persons in the OBC list.
He argued that the Banthia Commission, constituted by the State of Maharashtra, had gone with the existing list of OBCs, without fulfilling the ‘triple tests’ laid down by the Apex Court.
He further said that OBCs were based on social and educational backwardness for the purpose of reservation under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) and not for political reservation. A separate criteria should apply to ascertain Politically Backward Classes (PBCs), added the Senior Counsel.
Agreeing that elections should not be stalled, Senior Advocate Sankaranarayan said the only issue was with respect to the proper identification of reservations.
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