The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled over the Maharashtra civic elections. The court has directed the State Election Commission to issue notification of local body elections in the state within four weeks.
The court also said that the Maharashtra Election Commission should try to conduct body elections within four months.
A bench headed by Justice Suryakant said in its order- In our view, the constitutional mandate of democracy should be respected through elections from time to time of local bodies.
Screw was stuck on OBC reservation
The Supreme Court also clarified that local body elections in Maharashtra have not been held for the last several years. The main reason for this has been many pending legal processes related to OBC reservation.
The court has not considered this delay to be perfect for the democratic process and directed to hold elections on time. The court accepted the report of the Banthia Commission.
In this report, it was recommended to reserve 27 percent seats for this class in the census and local body elections in Maharashtra to decide the accurate figures on OBC.
The bench said that the results of the Maharashtra local body elections would be subject to the decisions of the pending petitions in the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court had also decided in 2021
In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that reservation for OBCs in local bodies would not be allowed until the government completes the triple test set in the 2010 order of the apex court.
The court had ordered that OBC seats would be re -notified as general category seats until the triple test criteria is met.
Shiv Sena (undivided) won 84 seats
In the 2017 BMC elections (undivided) Shiv Sena won 84 seats, while BJP won 82 seats. A large part of undivided Shiv Sena MLAs and MPs revolted against Uddhav Thackeray in June 2022 and Eknath Shinde joined the Neet camp. Later, the Election Commission recognized his party as a real Shiv Sena.
