While striking down the OBC reservation the bench dismissed the state government’s plea that it had constituted a Commission through a notification dated June 29, “however without waiting for its report and opinion, the state government hastened the process (of reservation) by issuing an Ordinance which clearly impinges upon the legal position…,” the court observed.Prime Minister Modi’s BJP Government at the Centre and in various states have been playing a sneaky game with the schedule castes, scheduled tribes but most of all with the Other Backward Classes representation in government employment, particularly in university teaching posts for long and now thanks to the Supreme Court diktat their representation in local bodies is also struck down. All on the specious plea that the government has no data over the backward caste population in the country. The Government has rejected demands to make public the data on castes collected in the 2011 census, despite persistent demands of OBC leaders like Lalu Prasad, Sharad Yadav and others, claiming it was faulty and erroneous. The bench immediately accepted this contentious plea without questioning why only this data was suspect when everything else in the 2011 census stood certified and why has the BJP government resorted to this tactic only after the demand for caste census has become more loud. Following this order striking down the reservation for the OBCs in the local bodies on purely technical grounds, the Maharashtra government decided to stay the entire election process till this matter was sorted out. On December 15 the Maharashtra cabinet resolved to defer the local body polls until empirical data has been collected for the purpose of reservation. The state government indicated it might have to defer the polls scheduled for January 18 to sometime in May. Most ministers pressed to defer the polls till the OBC reservation was restored, according to cabinet member from NCP, Chhagan Bhujbal. Within no time the Supreme Court bench passed an order tying the Maharashtra government’s hands and passed an order the same day stating, “In other words, the SEC must issue fresh notification for the remaining 27 per cent seats reserved for the OBC as general category and commence election process for them along with remaining 73 per cent…Counting and final results of both…must be held together and declared on one day local body wise” adding “these directions would also apply to by-elections.”
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