The Telangana High Court on Thursday (Dec 4) refused to interfere in a series of court petitions seeking re-fixation of reservations in some gram panchayats of the state during the ongoing rural local body elections.
A bench of Justices P. Sam Koshy and Suddala Chalapathi Rao observed that courts cannot interfere in the election process once a notification is issued, under Article 243-O of the Constitution. The bench was hearing pleas to the government to stop the election process where reservations for the posts of sarpanchs and wardens were made for particular communities but not enough people from those communities were available to vote.
The petitioners wanted to cancel the elections in such grampanchayats and re-allot the reservations according to the current population in those villages. The State Election Commission has informed the assembly that once the ongoing panchayat election process is completed, elections may be held for the posts of sarpanchs and wardens in such panchayats where no candidates are available from the communities for which the posts have been reserved.
The SEC also said that nominations for the first two phases have already been completed and the process for the third phase has started. The election cannot be postponed at this stage, the SEC counsel said. Lawyers for the petitioners argued that they were not seeking annulment of the entire election, but were seeking redetermination of reservations where candidates from municipalities for which reservations had been made were not available for voting.
However, the bench dismissed another petition naming 29 IAS officers as respondents and said reservations for Backward Classes have been reduced from the earlier 24% to the current 17% against more than 40% of the BC population in the state. The panel took a serious exception by including 29 IAS officers as respondents in the suit and dismissed the suit.
Published – 04 Dec 2025 22:08 IST
