The Madras High Court on Tuesday ruled against reservation of 105 out of 200 wards in the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) for women candidates and agreed with a litigant that the reservation should not exceed 50% as per the laws.
Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu struck down a 2016 amendment to the Tamil Nadu Town Panchayats, Municipalities and Corporations (Delimitation of Wards or Divisions and Reservation) Rules, 1996.
Zone as a unit
The amendment provided for taking an individual zone as a unit for determining reservation for women candidates in the GCC alone. It was made to ensure that reservation was spread over all zones.
However, the Division Bench agreed with senior counsel S. Prabakaran, representing the petitioner, that reservation on the basis of zones had led to the overall quota having crossed the permissible limit of 50%. The judges held that such a procedure could not be adopted with respect to the GCC alone when the reservation for women was being done only on the basis of the total number of seats in the Corporations of Coimbatore, Madurai and other cities.
R. Parthiban of West Mambalam had filed the petition contending that the legal provisions, relating to reservation for women candidates in the urban local bodies, originally provided for only one-third of the seats to be reserved for them. However, in 2016, the laws were amended to the effect that not less than 50% of the seats should be reserved for women in the elections to the post of ward councillor.
Observing that the phrase “not less than 50%” should not be construed to mean that reservation for women could be provided even beyond 50%, the petitioner said it would amount to discriminating against male candidates.
Providing a break-down of the wards that had been reserved for various categories in the GCC, the petitioner said 89 had been reserved for women (general), 16 for the Scheduled Castes (women) and 16 for the Scheduled Castes (general). The rest of the 79 wards alone had been left open for male candidates from the general category.
The petitioner said only 84 wards should be reserved for women (general) and an equal number provided to male candidates in the general category.
