The Supreme Court has given a big relief to the Shivraj government of Madhya Pradesh. The Supreme Court on Wednesday (May 18, 2022) has given green signal to OBC reservation in the urban body and panchayat elections of Madhya Pradesh. The court has asked to notify reservation this week and to issue notification of elections next week. The court said in its decision that in no case (OBC, SC-ST) reservation will be given more than 50 percent.
Earlier, the court had directed to conduct urban body and panchayat elections in Madhya Pradesh without OBC reservation, which were stuck for three years. After this, the Shivraj government had filed an amendment petition in the apex court late on May 12 regarding the OBC quota. While hearing this on Wednesday, the court has given this order. The Supreme Court has accepted the report of the OBC Commission of the state, after which now the local body elections will be held with OBC reservation.
Let us inform that in its order of 10 May, while directing to conduct the body elections without OBC reservation, the Supreme Court had said that the notification of the civic elections should be issued before 24 May. Also, the court had said that reservation cannot be given without fulfilling the conditions of OBC reservation.
Following this, the state government again approached the court for permission to implement the OBC quota and said that the first report of the commission has been revised taking into account the concerns expressed by the court.
The OBC Commission of Madhya Pradesh had submitted a report in the Supreme Court regarding the basis of reservation for backward classes in the state. In this, a demand has been made to give 35 percent quota to OBCs. In Madhya Pradesh, the court had directed to conduct a study to give reservation to the backward classes in three-tier (village, district and district) panchayat and urban bodies (city council, municipality and municipal corporation).