Hyderabad: A petition challenging the state government ordinance related to restriction of the reservation for the Backward Classes in the gram panchayat elections was moved before the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday.
Mr U. Samba Shiva Rao of the Telangana State’s BC Mahajana Samithi and Mr Jajula Srinivasa Goud, president of the Telangana BC Welfare Association, filed a petition against Ordnance No. 2 of 2018, which was issued on December 15.
The ordinance amended the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018. As per the Act, reservations for BCs was fixed at 34 per cent but it was brought down to 23 per cent as per the directions of the Supreme Court, which has laid a 50 per cent cap on reservations.
The petitioners sought the court to suspend the ordinance as illegal and requested it to direct the government to implement reservations for BCs in accordance with the Constitutional scheme.
They mentioned in the petition that government was not following the provisions of the PR Act, which stated that the BCs had to be enumerated and elections have to be conducted every five years in consonance with Article 243E of the Constitution. This petition will be heard on Wednesday by the Chief Justice’s bench.
