HC: Don’t exceed quota for panchayat raj polls

The Hyderabad High Court on Monday directed the Telangana state government not to exceed the limit of 50 per cent reservations for elections to panchayat raj institutions in the state.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan and Justice Ramesh Ranganathan while dealing with two petitions by Ms V. Swapna Reddy, a resident of Sangareddy district, and Mr A. Gopal Reddy from Nagarkurnool granted the interim order.

While reminding that the Supreme Court had ordered that the reservations for OBC, SC and ST candidates should not exceed 50 per cent, the bench said it would be not applicable to panchayats in the Scheduled Tribe areas.

The petitioners sought to declare provisions of the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018 under Sections 94 97 (e) 99 (a) 174 (a) and 171 (b) as unconstitutional contrary to the law laid down by the apex court. They asked the High Court to strike down the Act and set aside GO Rt No. 396 issued for the elections.

Mr Vedula Srinivas, counsel for the petitioners, said that the apex court had ruled that reservations shall not exceed the 50 per cent for BC, SC and ST candidates in local bodies’ elections. The state government was providing 34 per cent reservations to BCs which would taken the overall reservations past the 50 per cent-mark in the state.

When the bench asked for the reasons for providing 34 per cent reservations for BCs, Mr A. Sanjeev Kumar, counsel for the government, replied that this was done in view of the earlier orders of the court and data available with the government.

He informed the bench that a single judge had recently ordered the government not to conduct the elections to panchayat raj bodies without completing enumeration of BC voters.

While admitting the petitions, the bench issued notices to the respondents directing them to file the counter affidavits.