New Delhi Dec 27 PTI The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of its December 17 order directing the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission SEC to stay the poll process on seats reserved for Other Backward Classes in the local body there and re-notify those seats for the general categoryIn its application the Centre has said that uplift of the Scheduled Castes the Scheduled Tribes and the OBCs has been the utmost priority of the government and inadequate representation of OBCs in local self-government defeats the very object intent and purpose of the very idea of the de-centralisation of power and taking governance to the grass-root levelIt has also urged the apex court to direct the local body elections to be deferred for four months with a mandate to the state government to come out with the report of the commission and directing the SEC to hold the elections accordinglyIt has requested the top court to suspend the election process as an interim measureThe Centre has also sought impleadment in the matter in which the apex court had passed the order on December 17On December 17 the top court had referred to the constitution bench verdict of 2010 which had mentioned the triple condition including setting up a dedicated commission to conduct a contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies within the state which is required to be followed before provisioning such reservation for the OBC category It had also said that later a three-judge bench had reiterated the sameThe issues raised in the present petition are of great public importance and has a pan India ramification on the issue of implementation of OBC reservations in the elections all throughout the country the Centre has said in its application seeking impleadment in the matterIn its application seeking recall of the December 17 order the government has said that inadequate representation or non-representation of the OBCs has a two fold adverse impactFirstly the persons belonging to OBC category are deprived of an opportunity to be elected to the elected positions through democratic process and fulfil the aspirations of not only the residents of OBC community but everyone else which helps development of leadership quality in such communities it saidSecondly such inadequate representation or non-representation deprives the voters belonging to OBCs community to elect one amongst them to the elected offices it said adding that the same is strictly contrary to the object intent and purpose of the constitutional schemeThe application said the apex court had passed the order at a stage when the election process was on going with representation of persons belonging to the OBC communityAny intervention at this stage would deprive the person belonging to OBC community for five long years which by no stretch of logic be said to be a short period causing grave prejudice to the backward classes it saidThe Centre said while the mandate of law in the judgements delivered by the constitution bench and the three-judge bench has to be complied with the apex court may consider striking a balance between the adherence to these verdicts and protecting the interest of persons belonging to OBC category which is of utmost priority for the governmentthe applicant therefore is moving this application praying for intervention of this court to defer the ongoing election process by four months with a mandate to the state government to come out with the report of the commission which is already functioning within three months it saidThe Centre said till such time the administrator can function who can hand over the charge to the newly elected person or body who will be elected with the provision of OBC reservationIt said as per the assurance given before the top court the Centre has already issued a detailed advisory sent to all the state governments requiring their strict compliance with the binding judicial pronouncements in the two verdictsOn December 17 the apex court had observed that it had passed an order on December 15 directing the SEC to notify the seats in the local body in Maharashtra which were reserved for the OBCs as general category Accordingly we direct the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission to stay the election process in respect of OBCs seats only in all the local bodies and to re-notify those seats for general category the bench had said on December 17The apex court had passed the order after the matter related to local body election in Madhya Pradesh on seats reserved for OBC was brought before itIt had said the matter related to Madhya Pradesh would be listed along with the petitions pertaining to Maharashtra on January 17In March this year a three-judge bench of the apex court had said that reservation in favour of OBCs in the local bodies concerned in Maharashtra cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes the Scheduled Tribes and OBCs taken together The top court had referred to the triple condition noted in the constitution bench verdict of 2010 The conditions included 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 in any case such reservation shall not exceed an aggregate of 50 percent of the total seats reserved in favour of SCsSTsOBCs taken together PTI ABA ABA DV DV

Sagar (Madhya Pradesh) [India], December 26 (ANI): Amid the ongoing impasse over OBC reservation in civic polls, Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel on Saturday said the state governments did not take a proper stand over the matter and the backward classes should not be thrown back into the fire.

Bhopal Dec 22 PTI In view of the recent ruling of the Supreme Court regarding OBC seats in Madhya Pradesh the State Election Commission SEC on Wednesday decided to postpone the tabulation of votes and declaration of results of the upcoming Panchayat polls As per the directions of the Supreme Court the proceedings related to the tabulation of counting of votes and the declaration of election results for all the posts in the three-tier Panchayat elections has been postponed said BS Jamod Secretary MP SEC He said that separate instructions will be issued in this regard The order issued by the SEC quoted the SC directives stating that Further election for General category seats shall proceed along with other election already notified and is underway but results of all the seats including re-notified general seats will be declared together on the same day Jamod said that all the records and documents related to the counting of votes will be kept in safe custody after sealing them in the presence of candidates or their agents In case of the sole candidate for any seat neither the results will be declared nor a winning certificate is given he said On December 17 the apex court had stayed the poll process on seats reserved for Other Backward Classes in Panchayat elections in Madhya Pradesh and re-notified these seats as the general category seats The SC ruling came after Congress leader Manmohan Nagar president of Bhopal Jila Panchayat approached the apex court claiming that the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh had violated the Constitutional provisions on the rotation of reservation and delimitation for the Panchayat polls A day after the SCs ruling the SEC s decided to put off the Panchayat election process on the seats reserved for OBCs Polling on other seats will be held as per the schedule in three phases on January 6 January 28 and February 16 next year A total of 155 posts of members of Jila Panchayats 1273 members of Janpad Panchayats 4058 sarpanchs 64353 posts of panch were reserved for OBCs during this election process On December 4 the SEC had announced polling for 859 posts of district panchayats across 52 districts in Madhya Pradesh 6727 posts under 313 Janpad Panchayats Sarpanchs of 22581 village panchayats and on 362754 posts of Panch members in three phases on January 6 January 28 and February 16 The process of filing nominations for the first and second phases began on December 13 Counting of votes for the sarpanch and the panch elections will be held at the booths while votes for Janpad Panchayat and Jila Panchayat members will be counted at the block headquarters Results of the election for Janpad panchayat members will be announced at the block headquarters on February 22 The results of the Jila panchayat members election will be declared at the district headquarters on February 23 the SEC had said After the SECs fresh announcement Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath on Wednesday asked the state government to clarify its stand on the confusion prevailing about the Panchayat elections The MP government had promised in the State Assembly that Panchayat elections will not be held without OBC reservation but the confusion is increasing due to new SEC orders every day State government should clarify what steps it has been taking and when it is moving to the court to ensure OBC reservation in Panchayat polls Nath said in a statement BJPs OBC wing son Wednesday staged statewide protests against Congress accusing the opposition party of conspiring against the backward classes said partys media cell in-charge Lokendra Parashar During the protests workers burnt effigies of Nath and Congress MPs Digvijay Singh and Vivek Tankha petitioner Manmohan Nagars lawyer for conspiring against the OBCs he said PTI ADU NSK NSK