Telangana HC seeks State, EC response on local body polls reservation issue

Telangana High Court directs the State government and Election Commission to respond within two weeks on a petition regarding local body elections. The court emphasised implementing its October 9 order on BC reservation without delaying election rescheduling

Hyderabad: Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin of the Telangana High Court on Friday directed the State government and the Telangana State Election Commission to clarify, within two weeks, their stand on a petition seeking to conduct local body elections in accordance with the court’s earlier order dated October 9.

In the earlier order, the High Court had stayed the proposed enhancement of Backward Classes (BC) reservations in local body elections and permitted the Election Commission to proceed with the polls without applying the increased quota.

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During Friday’s hearing, the Bench made it clear that the present writ petition should not obstruct the process of rescheduling the elections and emphasised that the directions issued by the Court on October 9 must be implemented in full.

The petition, filed by advocate Renka Surendar from Mancherial district, questioned the Election Commission’s move to suspend the election process through a notification issued on October 9. He requested the court to direct the Commission and the State to reclassify the seats that were allotted in excess of the permissible reservation limit as Open Category seats and to issue a revised election schedule in line with the High Court’s interim order.

Appearing for the State Election Commission, Standing Counsel G Vidyasagar submitted that following the High Court’s interim order, the Commission had kept the election notification in abeyance and invoked Rule 6 of the Conduct of Election Rules, since changes in the reservation pattern would alter the composition of constituencies.

He further informed the court that the Commission was proceeding in consultation with the State government, which is responsible for determining the category-wise reservation of seats under the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act. Vidyasagar added that after the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s Special Leave Petition challenging the High Court’s interim order, the Election Commission had written to the government seeking updated details of the revised reservations so that the election process could move forward in compliance with the court’s directions.