The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to renotify as “general seats” the 27 per cent seats earlier reserved under the “other backwards classes (OBCs)” category for local body elections.

The court directed the state election commission to issue a fresh notification. The 27 per cent seats had been reserved for OBCs through an ordinance.

A bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravi Kumar also rejected the Maharashtra government’s plea for staying the election process for another three months to enable the state to collect the requisite data relating to OBCs.

The bench declined to entertain the Maharashtra government’s plea that the Centre be directed to furnish to the state OBC data collected during the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census.

The court allowed the writ petition filed by Rahul Ramesh Wagh challenging the 27 per cent quota for OBCs as impermissible and illegal as it had not been backed by adequate data and was contrary to a five-judge constitution bench judgment in 2010 that was reiterated by a three-judge bench early this year.

In the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs State of Maharashtra & Ors (2021) case, the court had directed a triple test before reserving seats for OBCs.

“(1) To set up a dedicated commission to conduct contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies within the state; (2) to specify the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned local body-wise in light of recommendations of the commission so as not to fall foul of overbreadth; and (3) in any case such reservation shall not exceed aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs/ STs/ OBCs taken together,” the ruling had said.

Such an exercise had been recommended by the constitution bench as well.

Wagh had alleged that the state had got around these requirements by introducing an ordinance and the poll panel had notified the elections to the local bodies with 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.