MP Panchayat elections: SC directs to treat OBC seats as general seats

The Supreme Court has made its stand clear on a petition regarding OBC reservation in the MP Panchayat elections. The next hearing on the petition will be on January 27.

Bhopal: The Supreme Court has made its stand clear, today, on a petition regarding OBC reservation in the MP Panchayat elections and said that the OBC seat should be treated as a general seat. The next hearing on the petition will be on January 27.

SC has directed the State Election Commission(SEC) to conduct the elections within the ambit of the laws and the election would be cancelled if the law is not followed.

The petition says that in 2019, the state government had implemented fresh reservation criteria through an ordinance, without abolishing this ordinance, it has been decided to conduct the Panchayat elections of 2022 on the basis of reservation of 2014, which is unconstitutional.

A total of five petitioners, including Manmohan Nair of Bhopal and Sandeep Patel of Gadarwada, filed a petition in the Supreme Court against non-compliance of the process, including the rotation process, in the Panchayat elections.

Earlier, the petitioners had sought an emergency hearing from a bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla in the MP High Court but the High Court fixed the date for hearing on January 3, after which the petition was filed in the Supreme Court on December 16 and was heard today.