Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday heard a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking to rework the reservations for Backward Classes in Panchayat Raj bodies.
The petitioners — Telangana Panchayat Raj Chamber president Ch. Satyanarayana Reddy and a farmer P. Srishailam — represented to the court to stay any election notification to be issued by the government for the elections to gram panchayats.
They contended that the 34% reservations for Backward Classes was wrongly calculated and announced through a circular on June 12.
A Division Bench of the High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice J. Uma Devi heard the petition.
The Bench raised the question if the reservations for BCs can be equated with the reservations related to legislatures in the backdrop of some orders by the Supreme Court and decided to hear further on the matter.
Meanwhile, a writ petition was filed by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Dasoju Sravan and B. Ravindranath seeking direction to the government to conduct elections to gram panchayats only after enumerating persons belonging to BCs and allot the panchayat raj bodies as per A, B, C, D and E categories amongst the BCs.
The petitioners also submitted to the HC to direct the government not to issue any election notification to the gram panchayats till reservations for BCs are announced for different categories.
Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao heard the petition and posted the matter for further hearing.
