Patna High Court says OBC, EBC quota for municipal polls in Bihar illegal

The Patna High Court declared illegal reservation for Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) and Other Backward Caste (OBC) in Bihar urban local body without following the triple test criteria as laid down by the Supreme Court.

A division bench headed by chief justice Sanjay Karol directed the state election commission (SEC) to hold the elections “only by immediately re-notifying the seats reserved for OBCs, treating them as general categories seats”.

The order comes less than a week before the first phase of the two-phased elections was scheduled on October 10. “Our direction, similar in nature, is based on the dictum of the Supreme Court,” said the bench also comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar.

“The maximum reservations granted to OBC/EBC candidates in the ULB polls has failed in two out of the three constitutional parameters of testing political backwardness of various castes in Bihar as laid down by a constitution bench of the Supreme Court in the K. Krishna Murthy vs state of Maharashtra case,” the HC said.

“The state of Bihar has not undertaken any exercise by which the criteria adopted for providing reservations under socio-economic/educational services have been adopted for the purposes of ensuring electoral representation of OBCs, including EBCs”, the HC further stated.