The Karnataka authorities reserved 33 per cent of seats for different backward courses (OBC) in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council based mostly on “imaginary information” and never by a scientific train, Karnataka Excessive Court docket dominated in the midst of a choice final week to quash an August 16 notification of the civic physique quota matrix.
The federal government fastened the OBC quota for the Bengaluru metropolis council at 33 per cent of the 243 seats based mostly on a report submitted on July 21 by a fee headed by former Karnataka Excessive Court docket decide Justice Bhaktavatsala.
The BJP authorities shaped the fee to stick to Supreme Court docket prescribed ‘triple check’ norms to order constituencies for OBC. The fee supplied a report on the quota requirement a day earlier than a Supreme Court docket listening to on a virtually two-year delay within the BBMP polls and the problem of OBC reservations.
The Justice Bhaktavatsala fee report was positioned within the Supreme Court docket amid political apprehensions that it could order the conduct of civic polls in Bengaluru with out OBC reservations as accomplished in Maharashtra native physique polls final yr.
The Karnataka Excessive Court docket in its order on September 30 in a bunch of petitions in opposition to the quota matrix prescribed for the Bengaluru civic polls by the BJP authorities on August 16 dominated that the 33 per cent quota fastened for OBC was not based mostly on actual information.
The Justice Bhaktavatsala fee referred to information for city and native physique elections held in 1996, 2001, 2010, and 2015 to conclude that a lot of castes and communities “who come beneath the Class- A and B of Different Backward Lessons are nonetheless socially and politically backward” and that “offering reservation of 1/3 rd (33 per cent)” is important.
The fee advisable 33 per cent reservations for forthcoming city and native physique polls in favour of OBCs and “to contemplate offering reservation of workplace of the mayor and the deputy mayor in BBMP in favour of individuals belonging to different backward courses”.
The Karnataka Excessive Court docket dominated that the “conclusion arrived at by the fee of enquiry that 44.40 per cent of the whole inhabitants of the state of Karnataka (together with minorities) belongs to different backward courses shouldn’t be based mostly on any empirical information”.
The fee was required to conduct a rigorous investigation into the sample of backwardness that acts as a barrier to political participation which is certainly fairly completely different from patterns of disadvantages within the matter of entry to training or employment. Such an train shouldn’t be forthcoming from the report submitted by the fee of enquiry nor any materials is positioned by the state authorities that the fee of enquiry had carried out such an enquiry or the report was based mostly on the empirical information furnished by the state authorities,” Justice Hemant Chandangoudar stated in his order on Friday.
“The fee was required to seek out out which of the communities are backward within the native our bodies throughout the state of Karnataka on the idea of empirical information and thereafter opine that offering reservation of 33 per cent of whole seats in favour of OBCs together with the minorities within the native our bodies is justifiable,” the excessive courtroom stated.
“The conclusion that enormous numbers of castes and communities come beneath the class of A and B of different backward courses and that they’re nonetheless socially and politically backward is alleged to be based mostly on the info pertaining to city and native physique elections held within the state of Karnataka within the yr 1996, 2001, 2010 and 2015,” the excessive courtroom noticed.
“The conclusion that 44% of the state inhabitants consists of backward courses together with minorities is imaginary and the identical is opposite to the triple check enumerated within the case of Okay Krishnamurthy (by the Supreme Court docket),” the HC stated.
“Therefore, I’m of the view that the notification issued by the state authorities offering reservation for backward courses on the idea of the report submitted by the fee of enquiry is opposite to the triple check set down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court docket,” the excessive courtroom stated.