A Division Bench of the A.P. High Court on Wednesday suspended the operation of the GO 128 issued on June 6 regarding the reservations for the ensuing local body elections and stayed all the subsequent actions. Thus the election process has been effectively stayed, a day after Justice G. Rohini refused to put them off. The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Nissar Ahmed Kakru and Justice Vilas Afzulpurkar was dealing with a writ petition filed by M. Venkata Reddy of Nagulapally village, Mahabubnagar district. He challenged the constitutional validity of GO 128.
This GO was issued amending the rules of 2006 pertaining to the reservations to various social groups in the local panchayat bodies.
In the GO, it was stated that the population of the Backward Classes in the State was found to be 39.39 per cent according to the survey conducted by the AP Backward Classes Finance Corporation.
The Scheduled Castes were allotted 18.30 per cent of seats, the Scheduled Tribes 8.25 per cent, and the BCs 34 per cent.
The Bench heard the arguments by senior advocate Vedula Venkata Ramana who wondered how the present GO was issued without taking into account the judgment of the Supreme Court of May, 2010, restricting the reservations to 50 per cent. He contended that the statutory authority like the State Election Commission (SEC) cannot act contrary to the Supreme Court judgment.
The Bench, speaking through the Chief Justice, then stayed the GO. No submissions were made by the advocates representing the government and the SEC as they were not called upon to respond.
Hyderabad Special Correspondent writes: The government has thus decided to promulgate an ordinance in a day or two to appoint in-charge persons to mandal praja parishads (MPP) and zilla praja parishads (ZPP). As a result, the possibility of conducting elections to these bodies has been ruled out.
Following a meeting with Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Law & Courts Minister E. Pratap Reddy told The Hindu that the government was left with no alternative but to promulgate an ordinance to appoint in-charge persons till the issue of 60.5 per cent quota to weaker sections was resolved.
The AP Panchayat Raj Act empowered the government to appoint in-charge persons only to gram panchayats and not mandal parishads and zilla parishads.
The draft ordinance would be placed before the Cabinet for approval on Thursday. The draft ordinance was ready and could be promulgated by the Governor on request by the government.
