Andhra Pradesh files SLP in Supreme Court challenging HC judgment on BC quota in local body elections

The Andhra Pradesh government filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court on Saturday, challenging the High Court order dated October 1 on reservation for the Backward Classes (BCs) in the local body elections.

It said the dispute raised an important question concerning the scope of the enabling power conferred upon the State Legislature under Articles 243-D(6) and 243-T(6) of the Constitution and the manner in which contemporaneous empirical material gathered by the State was to be evaluated while determining political reservation for the BCs in the institutions of local self-government.

The government argued that the impugned judgment proceeded on the premise that the reservation exercise undertaken in the year 2026 suffered from essentially the same infirmity as the earlier reservation exercise considered by the High Court in the Birru Prathap Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh.

The AP Panchayat Raj Act of 1994 was enacted pursuant to the constitutional framework introduced by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, and Article 243-D(6) expressly enabled the State Legislatures to make provisions for reservation of seats and offices of Chairpersons in Gram Panchayats (GPs) in favour of the BCs.

Correspondingly, Article 243-T(6) facilitated such reservation in municipalities, and political reservation under Parts IX and IX-A of the Constitution had been recognised by the High Court as having a distinct constitutional foundation and purpose, and it was aimed at securing effective participation in democratic self-government, as distinguished from reservation in education and public employment, it was noted.

Further, the government stated that the AP Panchayat Raj Act originally provided for reservation for the BCs and was subsequently amended in 1995 to prescribe reservation of “not less than 34%” in respect of the relevant seats and offices in GPs and Mandal and Zilla Praja Parishads.

Significantly, the present reservation exercise was undertaken after the decision in Vikas Kishanrao Gawali v. State of Maharashtra, which required the State, before providing political reservation to OBCs in local bodies, to undertake a contemporaneous and rigorous empirical inquiry.

Accordingly, the State undertook a comprehensive Unified Family Survey (UFS) pursuant to G.O.Rt.No.207, dated December 23, 2025, covering household and citizen-level information, including demographic profile, socio-economic status, education, employment, housing conditions, assets and allied parameters.

The State’s case before the High Court was expressly that population was not treated as the sole determinant of political reservation but it constituted an important empirical input, and it was in certain materially changed circumstances that the government issued G.O.Rt.No.1065 permitting steps for conduct of elections to ULBs and implementation of the existing statutory ⅓ reservation for BCs under the applicable municipal enactments.

Thereafter, by G.O.Ms.No.105, the government restored 34% reservation for the BCs in the specified seats and offices of Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) under Sections 9, 15, 152, 153, 180 and 181 of the AP Panchayat Raj Act, 1994.

In the judgment dated October 1, 2026, the High Court had set aside the above G.Os to the extent that the aggregate vertical reservation exceeded 50%. The government contended that the court failed to assess the 2026 exercise on its own factual foundation.

The UFS constituted validated source material furnishing local body-wise data, and the High Court erred in rejecting such material per se instead of examining the exercise cumulatively.

It has been mentioned that there is also an apparent inconsistency in treating the ULB reservation identically despite recording the State’s submission that aggregate reservation in ULBs was approximately 49.24% as against 61.08% in PRIs.