Hyderabad: In a major setback to the state government, the Telangana High Court on Thursday issued interim stay orders on the implementation of the Government Order (GO) No 9, which provides 42 per cent reservation for the Backward Classes (BCs) in the upcoming elections to local bodies. The High Court questioned the government for issuing the GO on September 26 when the two bills on BC quota were pending before the President of India.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin, directed the government to file its counter within four weeks, while the petitioners were granted two weeks thereafter to file their replies, observing that the interim stay shall operate till such time.

The arguments, which went on for two days, concluded on Thursday evening.

The argument presented by the counsels for the petitioners was that the Government Order (GO) breached the 50 per cent upper ceiling on total reservations. K Vivek Reddy, senior counsel leading the petitioners, argued that the state government's order exceeded the 50 per cent limit imposed by the Supreme Court for reservations. There is no exception for backward classes. The GO also violated the Triple Test laid down by the Supreme Court. With the government enhancing the reservations for BCs from 24 per cent to 42 per cent (including 15 per cent to SCs, 10 per cent to STs), the total percentage of reservation rose to 67 per cent.

The petitioners’ contentions were primarily based on the breach of the ceiling limit of 50 per cent on reservations, in violation of Supreme Court judgments starting from the Indra Sawhney case to the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case. The 50 per cent cap, laid down as one of the triple tests by the apex court, cannot be breached, the petitioners argued.

They also contended that GO No. 9 violated the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018, which capped the total reservation at 50 per cent.

The state, on the other hand, relied heavily on the empirical data collected during the Socio-Economic, Education, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEEPC) survey.

During the course of hearing, Advocate General A Sudarshan Reddy informed the Division Bench that on 04-02-2024, the Telangana Government took up a door to door survey to assess the economic, social, employment and political stage of SCs, STs and other weaker sections of the State and based on this survey report, the Council of Ministers approved 42 per cent reservation for BCs and Assembly unanimously passed a resolution favouring the reservations, which reflects the people at large. The survey report showed that 57.6 per cent of BCs exist in the Telangana State and based on this survey report, the Telegram government decided to allocate 42 per cent reservations to the BCs in the local body (panchayat) elections.

The main reason why the Telangana Government took up the door-to-door survey in 2024 was that the last Census done by the Central Govt, was in 2011, which was meant for SCs and STs and after that there was no Census. That is why, this government collected the data pertaining to the BCs.

The Advocate General further informed the Court that when the government took a decision to hold a door to door survey, none of them opposed, but after the survey report (empirical data) was collected, based on which 42 per cent reservations were allocated to the BCs in the upcoming elections to local bodies, petitioners are now opposing it. It was brought to the notice of the Court that the then BRS government brought the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018 (Act No. 4/2019) and this Bill had the assent of the Governor and now the Panchayat Raj Act amendment bill, which was sent to the Governor and is pending, there is no assent because of which the government came up with an ordinance, which is in force.

The state government’s counsel argued that the BC population (57.6 per cent) created an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ forming the basis for enhancing the reservation. The state’s counsel further argued that Supreme Court judgments do not impose an absolute ceiling in such exceptional cases.

The Advocate General contended that the quota cannot be challenged as it was based on empirical data collected in a scientific manner.