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The Supreme Court on Thursday has dismissed the Telangana government's plea challenging the Telangana High Court's interim order that stayed the State government's decision to increase Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation in local body elections in the State to 42 per cent which took the overall reservations in the States' local bodies to 67 per cent.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, however, clarified that their decision to dismiss Telangana's plea will not affect the High Court from deciding the case on merits. The Telangana government had moved the top court challenging the High Court's interim stay over its decision to implement 42 per cent reservation for Backwards Classes in local body polls, which was issued following the passing of the Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2025 and Telangana Municipalities (Amendment) Bill 2025 in August this year. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing on behalf of the Telangana government, argued against the High Court's decision and submitted that the top court's nine-judge bench ruling in the Indira Sawhney case has laid down the law that clearly allows for flexibility in exceptional circumstances for the reservations to be enhanced beyond 50 per cent. Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayan, appearing on behalf of the petitioner who challenged the High Court's decision, submitted that as per the top court's landmark ruling on the subject, increasing reservations beyond 50 per cent is only allowed in exceptional circumstances to Schedule Tribes communities in Fifth Schedule states. He added that while Indra Sawhney recognised certain exceptional circumstances for exceeding the 50 per cent limit, those applied to socio-economic reservations in public employment and education, not to political reservations in local bodies. After hearing submissions, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea and state that the local body polls which has already commenced on October 9 shall continue to go on. (ANI)
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