Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has mandated that the state government complete a survey within three months to identify the politically backward classes and to enumerate backward-class voters across all local bodies in Telangana.
This directive follows the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of ‘Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs. State of Maharashtra’.
A Division Bench of the Telangana High Court, led by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao, instructed Advocate General A. Sudershan Reddy to follow the Supreme Court’s guidelines specified in Paragraph 13 of the aforementioned judgment.
The High Court’s ruling was prompted by three petitions submitted in 2018, 2019, and 2020 by the Telangana State Backward Classes Welfare Association, along with individuals such as Jajula Srinivas Goud and Dasoju Sravan Kumar.
These petitions contested the ongoing local body election process, arguing that it should not proceed without the required fresh identification of politically backward classes, as mandated by the Supreme Court’s previous ruling in ‘K. Krishnamurthy vs. Union of India.’
During the previous hearing in early August, the petitioners’ lawyers pointed out that the Supreme Court had issued new orders in 2021, reaffirming the triple test criteria for OBC reservations. They indicated that their issues would be resolved if the directives from the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case were properly implemented.
On August 6, the High Court instructed the Advocate General to estimate the time needed to comply with the Supreme Court’s orders. In response, the Advocate General reported on Tuesday that the government would require about three months to fulfil these directives.
Consequently, the High Court granted a three-month extension for completing the process and required a status report to be submitted upon its completion.
