Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has reserved its verdict in a petition challenging the non-inclusion of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for the ensuing elections to 186 Village Panchayats (VP).
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During the hearing before the Division Bench of Justice M S Sonak and Justice R N Laddha, advocate Ashwin Bhobe, appearing for the petitioner, referred to the Supreme Court’s judgment mandating the “triple test” for inclusion of OBCs in the local body election.
“This is a statutory right that the government and the State Election Commission (SEC) reserve wards for the OBCs for the village panchayat elections. In this case in Goa, both have failed to complete this exercise. Why should an OBC candidate suffer?” he said.
The SEC, represented by advocate S N Joshi, put the onus on the State government stating that the Commission had to convert the OBC wards into General Category owing to incomplete data from the government.
“We did not obtain data in compliance with the Supreme Court judgment. In absence of all this, the OBC wards were converted to General to go ahead with the elections,” he told the court. The court has reserved its judgment with the possibility of its pronouncement on Wednesday.
The High Court, which also heard six other petitions regarding improper rotation of women reservations, dismissed the plea stating it was the SEC’s discretion. The petitioners had contended that the reservation of wards for women, which has to be carried out on a rotation basis every election, was not carried out properly.
While maintaining that there’s no pattern for such reservation, Joshi submitted that the Panchayats Department would earlier execute the process.
The SEC, which has been given this task for the first time, has given preference to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, followed by the OBC.
He also pointed out flaws that the government had executed while reserving wards for women candidates prior to SEC coming into the picture.
The Bench, while dismissing the petitions, observed that the court has no reasons to interfere as it is the discretion of the SEC.
