Supreme Court gives go ahead to local polls in Andhra

Elections will be held as per existing reservation quotas

Published on:

19 Feb 2013, 12:01 pm

The Supreme Court, on February 18, allowed the Andhra Pradesh government to hold elections to urban local bodies and panchayats as per the existing reservation quotas. In an interim order, a division bench of the court said that the state government, for the time being, could continue with the total 60.5 per cent reservation for the backward classes, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

The court was considering the appeals filed by the state government and others against an order passed by the Andhra Pradesh high court. The high court on September 4 last year had held that the total reservation should not exceed 50 per cent. The high court ordered that the state government should bring down the quota for backward classes so that the total reservation comes down to 50 per cent. The high court’s stance was that the total reservation in the local bodies cannot exceed 50 per cent as per a directive issued by the Supreme Court in May 2010.

Existing reservation

Total 60.5 %
Backward classes 34%
Scheduled Castes 18.3%
Scheduled Tribes: 8.25%

This had put the state government in a fix. Since 1994, the state government has providing 34 per cent reservation to backward classes, 18.3 per cent to SCs and 8.25 per cent to STs (total 60.5 percent)

Urban Local Bodies