HC notice to Telangana govt on BC quota order

The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday asked the Telangana state government whether there were any guidelines to delegate powers to revenue divisional officers to categorise Backward Classes as A, B, C, D and E groups.  The court directed the government to file the counter-affidavits on a petition challenging Section 9 of the Telangana State Panchayat Raj Act.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan and Justice Ramesh Rangana-than while dealing with a petition filed by Mr P. Asaiah, general secretary of the MBC Sangham, said it would decide the issue of providing group-wise reservations to BCs in local body elections after considering Article 243(D)(6), Sec-tion 9 of the Telangana Pan-chayat Raj Act and the orders of the apex court in this regard.

Mr A. Satya Prasad, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, said governments had the power to provide reservations to the BCs in elections to panchayats and municipalities and the Supreme Court had upheld the power of the states to provide the reservations. He said the state government under the PR Act had specified that reservations would given to the BCs who were recognised under Article 15(4) of the Constitution.

The bench asked whether the Constitution said the reservations had to provided to BCs group-wise in local body elections.  Counsel replied that the state Legislature had made an Act to provide reservations to BCs in local body elections. The bench questioned why the group-wise reservations were not provided during GHMC elections.  Counsel replied that the state government had to provide reservations to the BCs group-wise under the Article 15 (4) of the Constitution. 

The High Court had directed the state government to provide group-wise reservations to the BCs during the GHMC elections, but the Supreme Court had stayed the High Court order with a view to conducting the elections in time. Directing the respondents to file counter affidavits, the bench adjourned the case for four weeks.