Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has directed the state government to inform it by August 27 about the time required to set up a full-fledged commission for Backward Classes (BCs) in the state and conduct a survey on the extent of backwardness in various BC communities.
A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao was hearing a batch of petitions seeking implementation of BC reservations category-wise for reserving seats in elections for municipal corporations like GHMC and panchayat raj institutions in Telangana.
The high court bench noted that a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on March 4, 2021, laid down a triple test to be followed by states for providing reservations.
The court directed the Telangana government to adhere to this Supreme Court mandate while setting up the BC commission and undertaking the survey.
The Supreme Court instructed states to first establish a Backward Classes (BC) commission before allocating seats for BCs in local bodies.
This commission is responsible for conducting a survey to gather empirical data on the status of different BC categories.
Following the survey, states are to allocate seats to BCs based on the recommendations made by these commissions.
However, the Supreme Court emphasized that the total reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and BCs must not exceed 50% of the available seats.
