Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Thursday, October 16, dismissed the Telangana government’s petition on 42 percent reservation for backward classes in local body elections.

The Telangana government had filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court seeking vacation of the stay granted by the Telangana High Court on GO 9. The High Court, in its order, had allowed the state government to conduct elections as per the reservation in the previous election and adjourned the next hearing for six weeks.

The two-judge Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta after hearing the arguments on Thursday, directed the counsel representing Telangana government to approach the High Court where the matter was being heard.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who represented the state government, argued that as per the Indira Sahaney case, the state government has conducted triple-test with empirical data before determining 42 percent reservation for BCs.

Countering the argument, the counsel representing petitioner Madhav Reddy argued that the 50 percent cap on the reservation couldn’t be breached as per Supreme Court’s earlier judgements. He further argued that there was scope to breach the cap only in the scheduled areas inhabited by tribes but not in general areas.

This article has been updated with the correct headline