Patna HC deferred civic polls over legality issue of OBC & EBC reservation

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PATNA, Bihar: The Patna High Court on Tuesday, October 4, has termed the reservation provided by the Government of Bihar for the Extremely Backward Castes (EBC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) in urban local bodies of Bihar (ULBs) as illegal.

The court said that such quota reservation has failed in two out of the three parameters suggested by the Supreme Court of India to determine the political backwardness of a group or community. The Division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S Kumar while presiding over a batch of writ petitions contesting the reservation ordered that the polls could only take place after the government re-notifies the reserved seats as general category seats. The court accepted the complaints of the petitioners that the government has failed in gathering empirical evidence to determine the political backwardness.

Following the comment of the Patna High Court (HC), the State Election Commission (SEC) of Bihar issued a notification postponing the first and second phases of ULB elections which were scheduled to take place on October 10 and October 20 respectively.

The court was hearing the petition on an urgent basis during the puja vacations as the Supreme Court of India has referred the matter to Patna HC.