Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday refused to stay the process for Gram Panchayat elections in the State.
The High Court declined to grant the stay while hearing a writ petition challenging a state Government Order (GO) relating to reservation for Backward Classes (BCs) in Gram Panchayats.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh observed that as the process for the election has already started, it cannot be stayed.
The court directed the government to file a counter and adjourned the hearing by eight weeks.
The petition, filed by Madiwala Machadeva Rajakula Sangam, questioned the legality of providing BC reservations without following the statutory categorisation of BCs into A, B, C and D groups.
The petitioner sought the setting aside of Government Order Ms No 46, dated November 22, contending that the order was issued without observing BC sub-categorisation and without disclosing the complete empirical data of the Dedicated Commission Report dated November 20, 2025.
The petitioner pointed out that while the Telangana government has sent a Bill to amend Section 285-A of the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018 to the Governor, seeking to enhance BC reservations from 18–22 per cent to 42 per cent, the amendment does not provide for sub-classification of BC communities into BC-A, BC-B, BC-C and BC-D categories.
The petitioners contend that due to the absence of classification, the actual reservation percentage in rural and urban local bodies is likely to fluctuate between 18 per cent and 22 per cent at best, depending on ward-wise and village-wise voter composition, thereby defeating the very objective of enhancing BC representation.
The GO 46 replaced GO 42, issued on September 26, which proposed 42 per cent reservations for BCs and is currently under legal challenge in the High Court.
The High Court, while striking down the GO 42 through its interim order last month, allowed the government to conduct the local body elections with total reservation for all categories not exceeding 50 per cent.
The State Election Commission has already started the process for conducting elections to Gram Panchayats in three phases.
Filing of nominations for the first phase of elections in 4,326 villages and 37,459 wards began across the state on Thursday.
As per the notification issued by the Telangana State Election Commission on Tuesday, elections will be held on December 11, 14 and 17 for 12,728 posts of sarpanchs and 1,12,242 wards.
A total of 1.66 crore votes in rural areas are eligible to cast their votes in these elections.
(IANS)
