Telangana ordinance restricts SC/ST quota at 50pc for gram panchayat polls

The Telangana government has promulgated an ordinance restricting reservations to a maximum of 50 per cent for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes to enable conduct of elections to panchayat raj institutions in the state.

The Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018, was signed by state Governor ESL Narasimhan Saturday.

"In pursuance of the judgments of the Supreme Court, the upper ceiling of 50 per cent vertical reservations in favour of SCs/STs/OBCs should not be breached in the context of local self government," reads the new "Chapter-VIII-A" inserted in the ordinance.

"Accordingly, the seats and offices to be reserved for Backward Classes shall be so determined duly keeping in view the requirement of reservation in respect of SCs, STs therein, that the total number of seats/offices reserved for the SCs, STs and Backward Classes (BCs) shall not exceed 50 per cent of the total number of seats or as the cases may be, in the respective local bodies, in the manner prescribed," it said.

The Hyderabad High Court had directed the Telangana government to complete the election process for the members of gram panchayats and the offices of the sarpanch in the gram panchayats within three months from October 11.

The term of the local bodies ended on August 1 this year.

The state government then moved the Supreme Court seeking permission to enhance the total quota to 67 per cent, beyond the 50 per cent ceiling fixed by the top court, which was rejected.

The government wanted to raise the total quota percentage in proportion to population of the backward classes in the state.

Earlier, the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act-2018 enacted by the state legislature provided reservations of seats and offices in gram panchayats, mandal praja parishads and zilla praja parishads in favour of members belonging to Scheduled Tribes/Scheduled Castes on the basis of their proportionate percentage in population, to the total number of seats and offices.

The Act also provided that the number of seats and offices reserved for Backward Classes shall not be less than 34 per cent of the total number of offices of the members in such Panchayat Raj bodies in the state.

The Telangana Assembly was dissolved in September this year before the expiry of its term. In the assembly elections on December 7, the ruling TRS under K Chandrashekar Rao retained power.