Read Time: 05 minutes

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Khanwilkar and Ravikumar today directed the State Election Commission of Maharashtra to notify 27% of the seats reserved for the Other Backward Class candidates in Maharashtra local body elections as general seats prior to the commencement of the election process. The court further directed the State Election Commission to come out with a notification to this effect within a day.

The court further directed that the results for both general and OBC category seats to be declared on the same day. When the hearing for the case commenced, State of Maharashtra sought for modification of the order of the court dated 6th December granting stay of the ordinance granting the quota and further proposed that the court stay the entire election and grant a time of 3 months to the State Election Commission to complete the process of collecting data for the OBC reservation.

Dushyant Dave, Senior Advocate, appearing for the intervenors submitted that the court may not stop the OBC quota and that the elections can be permitted on the basis of the data collected during the 2017 elections. He further submitted that the backward classes cannot suffer owing to the inaction of the State or the Union government.

Mukul Rohatgi, Senior Advocate, appearing for the State of Maharashtra submitted that the court stay the elections and direct the State Election Commission to fast track the process of data collection and permit the elections to be conducted in 3 months.

Vikas Singh, Senior Advocate, appearing for the petitioners in the case submitted that in many places the OBC population was in majority and there was no need for a reservation to elect a person. He emphasised that it is necessary to collect proper data.

P.Wilson, Senior Advocate, appearing for one of the intervenors submitted that there was a situation of a constitutional deadlock as the governments are not doing caste survey. He also added that this was an injustice to the backward classes.

The court on hearing the parties held that the election process go on as per schedule and directed the State of Maharashtra to re-notify the 27% OBC seats as general seats.The State of Maharashtra had brought in an ordinance to provide 27% quota to OBC despite the order of the court in Vikas Krishnarao Gawli Vs State of Maharashtra quashing the same. The court observed that the State had attempted to overreach the judgment by bringing the ordinance.

Case title: Vikas Krishnarao Gawli Vs State of Maharashtra & Ors