SC stays order allowing U.P. local body polls without OBC reservation

CategoryPolity

Last Updated06/01/2023

The Supreme Court stayed an Allahabad High Court direction to the State of Uttar Pradesh to hold local body elections without reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC).

Chief Justice of India: “To hold elections without reservation… that would not be a satisfactory state of affairs,”.
Solicitor-General for U.P: The direction, if implemented, would mean that “one segment of the State would remain unrepresented”.

The High Court recently ordered elections to be held without OBC reservation after discovering that Uttar Pradesh had not complied with the “triple-test” criterion mandated by the Supreme Court to conduct a “contemporaneous rigorous empirical investigation” to identify backward classes in the State who deserve political representation in local bodies.

The State a day after the High Court order, notified the formation of the Uttar Pradesh State Local Bodies Dedicated Backward Classes Commission.
The commission was given six months’ time to complete its work, it could be done within three months “without compromising on quality”.
The court recorded his submission that the commission would complete the exercise “as expeditiously as possible on or before March 31, 2023”.
There were 79 backward communities listed in the Schedule of the U.P. State Public Services (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 1994.
“The limited scope of the Backward Classes Commission is to determine the political backwardness of the existing listed communities and not get into identifying new OBCs.

As an interim measure, the Bench adopted the High Court’s direction to form three-member committees headed by the District Magistrates in places where the tenures of elected bodies had expired.
The Bench ordered the State government to issue a fresh order delegating the day-to-day administrative work of local bodies to such three-member committees. These committees, however, would take no policy decision.

The court issued notice to parties who were writ petitioners in the Allahabad High Court and listed the case after three weeks.
The State government and the Election Commission had appealed to the Supreme Court against the High Court order.