The Supreme Court (SC) has refused to interfere with the Telangana High Court's (HC) order that stayed the state government's decision to increase the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation in local bodies. The decision was made public on Thursday, October 16, 2025.
The Telangana government's move sought to raise the OBC quota in municipalities and panchayats to 42%. This increase would have effectively raised the total reservations, including those for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), to 67%. The High Court, on October 9, 2025, put a stop to this hike.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta heard the appeal from the State of Telangana. The Supreme Court declined to stay the High Court's interim order, citing that doing so would be inconsistent with previous Constitution Bench rulings. These rulings had established a 50% ceiling on total reservations in local body elections. The Supreme Court clarified that local body elections could proceed without the proposed increase in OBC quotas.
The Supreme Court bench stated that its order should not affect the High Court from deciding the case on its own merits. The bench made it clear that the dismissal of the special leave petition before it will not affect the High Court in deciding the pending writ petition on its own merits.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Telangana government, argued that the 50% rule was not a rigid one and that the ceiling could be exceeded in exceptional circumstances. However, the Supreme Court did not accept this argument. Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appeared for one of the petitioners before the High Court, who had challenged the reservation hike.
The Telangana High Court's decision to stay the increase in OBC quota was based on the opinion that it appeared to violate the 50% limit set by the Supreme Court in previous cases. The High Court clarified that its order did not impede the holding of local body elections. It directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the polls while ensuring that the overall reservation remained capped at 50%. Polling for the Telangana local body elections is scheduled for October 23 and 27.
