Telangana High Court sets three month deadline for State government for BC census

The HC order came in response to three petitions filed in 2018, 2019 and 2020 by the Telangana State Backward Classes Welfare Association and individuals including Jajula Srinivas Goud and Dasoju Sravan Kumar

By LEGAL CORRESPONDENT

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday set a three-month deadline for the State government to complete a crucial empirical inquiry aimed at identifying politically backward classes and enumerating backward class voters in all local bodies across Telangana. This directive follows the Supreme Court’s judgment in the ‘Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs. State of Maharashtra’ case.

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A Division Bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao, instructed Advocate General A. Sudershan Reddy to adhere to the Supreme Court’s guidelines outlined in Paragraph 13 of the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali judgment. The State government was asked to submit a compliance report to the court within three months.

In the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali Vs State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court issued guidelines for fixing OBC reservations in local body elections, which says that the triple test/conditions required to be complied with by the State before reserving seats in the local bodies for OBCs has not been done so far. The conditions for the Triple Test were (1) to set up a dedicated Commission to conduct contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies, within the State; (2) to specify the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned local body-wise in light of recommendations of the Commission, so as not to fall foul of overbreadth; and (3) in any case such reservation shall not exceed aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs/STs/OBCs taken together.

The High Court’s order came in response to three petitions filed in 2018, 2019 and 2020 by the Telangana State Backward Classes Welfare Association and individuals including Jajula Srinivas Goud and Dasoju Sravan Kumar. These petitions challenged the continuation of the local body election process without undertaking the mandated fresh identification of politically backward classes as required by the Supreme Court’s earlier judgment in ‘K. Krishnamurthy vs. union of India’.

During the previous hearing in early August, the petitioners’ counsels highlighted that the Supreme Court had issued updated orders in 2021, reaffirming the triple test conditions for OBC reservations. The petitioners expressed that their concerns would be addressed if the directions from the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case were duly implemented.

The High Court had previously directed the Advocate General on August 6 to provide an estimate of the time required to comply with the Supreme Court’s orders. In response, the Advocate General reported on Tuesday that the government would need approximately three months to adhere to the directives. Accordingly, the High Court granted a three-month extension for the completion of the process and mandated that a status report be submitted upon its conclusion.