Recall OBC quota order or defer MP civic elections: Centre in SC
New Delhi, December 27
The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of its December 17 order directing the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) to stay the poll process on seats reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the local body there and re-notify those seats for the general category.
In its application, the Centre has said uplift of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the OBCs has been the utmost priority of the government and inadequate representation of OBCs in local self-government defeats the “very object, intent and purpose of the very idea” of the de-centralisation of power and taking governance to the grass-roots level. It has also urged the apex court to direct the local body elections to be deferred for four months with a mandate to the state government to come out with the report of the commission and directing the SEC to hold the elections accordingly.
It has requested the top court to suspend the election process as an interim measure. The Centre has also sought impleadment in the matter in which the apex court had passed the order on December 17.
On December 17, the top court had referred to the Constitution Bench verdict of 2010 which had mentioned the triple condition, including setting up a dedicated commission to conduct a contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies within the state, which is required to be followed before provisioning such reservation for the OBC category. It had also said later, a three-judge bench had reiterated the same.
“The issues raised in the present petition are of great public importance and has a pan-India ramification on the issue of implementation of OBC reservations in the elections all throughout the country,” the Centre has said in its application seeking impleadment in the matter.
In its application seeking recall of the December 17 order, the government has said that inadequate representation or non-representation of the OBCs has a two-fold adverse impact. — PTI
