OBC reservation in local bodies

OBC reservation in local bodies

Subject – Polity

Context – No 27% OBC quota in local body elections without triple test: SC

Concept –

• Apex court’s latest order in Rahul Ramesh Wagh v. State of Maharashtra &Ors. makes it mandatory that the principles laid down by the Supreme Court for providing reservation to OBCs in local bodies shall be scrupulously followed across the country.
• The present political quandary harks back to the five-judge Constitution Bench decision in Krishnamurthy (Dr.) v. Union of India (2010) wherein the Supreme Court had interpreted Article 243D(6) and Article 243T(6), which permit reservation by enactment of law for backward classes in panchayat and municipal bodies respectively, to hold that barriers to political participation are not the same as that of the barriers that limit access to education and employment.
• Though reservation to local bodies is permissible, the top court declared that the same is subject to empirical finding of backwardness in relation to local bodies as fulfilled through the three tests as follows:
  • “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 over breadth;
  • 3) And in any case such reservation shall not exceed aggregate of 50% of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs/STs/OBCs taken together.”
  • The 50% ceiling specifically relied on the ratio of the historic Indra Sawhney judgment (1992).

Vikas Krishnarao Gawali v. State of Maharashtra &Ors. (2021)

• The 2010 judgment was not acted upon and the constitutionality of the enacted reservation was challenged. This resulted in the 2021 judgment of a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court.
• In the above case, the Supreme Court read down the provision of the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961, which mandated for 27% reservation to OBCs in local bodies.
• The court observed that the reservation for OBCs was just a “statutory dispensation to be provided by the State legislations” and is different from the “constitutional” provisions which mandate reservation to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST).
• While insisting on the triple test, the court observed that the reservation in favour of OBCs in the concerned local bodies can be notified to the extent that it does not exceed 50% of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs/STs/OBCs taken together.
• The Supreme Court quashed notifications issued by the Maharashtra Election Commission, which provided more than 50% reservation to OBCs and SC/STs in some local bodies.