The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Allahabad High Court order, which directed the state poll panel to hold urban local body elections without reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The top court also issued a notice over the Uttar Pradesh government’s plea, challenging the HC order and granted three weeks’ time to file a response.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had on Monday mentioned the matter on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud for an urgent hearing. The apex court said it will hear the case on Wednesday.
In its appeal against the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court’s December 27 order, the UP government said that the high court wrongly quashed the December 5 draft notification which provided for reservation of seats in the urban body polls for OBCs apart from those for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
The appeal, filed through advocate Ruchira Goel, marks yet another turn in the politically sensitive issue and indicating further delay in the elections.
The appeal stated that OBCs are a constitutionally protected section and the high court erred in quashing the draft notification. A report by Hindustan Times quoted Goel as saying, “There are Supreme Court judgments that a notification in the draft form cannot be challenged.”
The state appeal further said that the high court’s direction to conduct the local body polls without providing proposed reservation for OBCs violates the constitutional guarantees available to backward classes.
The high court had held that the state government failed to fulfill the ‘Triple Test’ formality laid down by Supreme Court as prescribed in the case of “Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs State of Maharashtra & Ors. LL 2021 SC 13” to determine the political backwardness of OBCs.
This Triple Test’ included setting up of a dedicated commission to conduct contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness with respect to local bodies, specifying the proportion of reservation in light of the commission’s proposals, and not exceeding the 50% quota cap as laid down by the top court in a landmark 1992 judgment.
The state had also been directed to consider the claim of transgenders for their inclusion among the Backward Class of citizens once a dedicated Commission is constituted for undertaking the exercise of conducting the empirical study as to the nature and implications of Backwardness for the purposes of providing reservation to the Backward Class of citizens in the context of elections to the urban local bodies.
Hours after the order, UP CM said the state government would set up a commission to extend the quota benefit to OBCs in the ULB polls. “In the context of urban local body polls, a commission would be set up which would fix the reservation for the OBCs as per the triple test formula,” he had tweeted.
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