Supreme Court rejects Telangana's plea challenging HC order staying 42 percent OBC reservation in local body polls

A top court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta refused to put a stay on the interim order that was passed by the Telangana High Court.

The judges said it can't pass any order inconsistent with the Constitution bench ruling that has capped the total reservation at 50 percent in the local body polls.

The top court asked the High Court to make the final judgement on merits without getting influenced by the rejection of the State's Special Leave Petition.

When Justice Nath asked senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who was representing the State, why the bill proposing the reservation was not brought prior to the elections, the latter said the Governor had kept his signature on the bill on hold.

The Telangana government had moved the Supreme Court after the High Court had ordered an interim stay on the move to increase the reservation on October 9.

The High Court had found the new Act would push the reservation to 67 percent including 15 percent Scheduled Castes and 10 percent Scheduled Tribes, breaching the 50 percent capping as was proposed by the previous Supreme Court orders.

The High Court had, however, clarified that there was no bar on the conduction of local body elections and asked the State Election Commission (SEC) to hold the polls with reservations capped at 50 percent.

"You may continue with your elections… (State’s appeal) dismissed. This will not prevent the High Court from deciding the matter on its own merits," the bench told Singhvi as quoted by The Hindu.

The elections are due to be held on October 23 and 27.