Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday refused to stay the Gram Panchayat election process in the state.
The High Court, while hearing a writ petition challenging the State Government Order (GO) regarding reservation for Backward Classes (BCs) in Gram Panchayats, refused to grant a stay.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh said that since the election process had already begun, it could not be stayed.
The court directed the government to file a reply and adjourned the hearing for eight weeks.
The petition, filed by Madivala Machadeva Rajkula Sangam, questioned the legal validity of granting BC reservation without legally dividing BCs into A, B, C, and D groups.
The petitioner sought the quashing of Government Order Ms No 46 dated November 22, stating that the order was issued without reviewing the BC sub-categorization and without providing complete empirical data from the Dedicated Commission Report dated November 20, 2025.
The petitioner pointed out that the Telangana government has sent a bill to the Governor to amend Section 285-A of the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018, seeking to increase the BC reservation from 18-22 percent to 42 percent, but this amendment does not provide for sub-classification of the BC community into BC-A, BC-B, BC-C, and BC-D categories.
The petitioner argues that due to the lack of classification, the actual reservation percentage in rural and urban local bodies can fluctuate between 18% and 22%, depending on ward-wise and village-wise voter composition, thus defeating the very purpose of increasing BC representation.
GO 46 replaces GO 42, issued on September 26, which proposed 42% reservation for BCs and is currently under legal challenge in the High Court.
The High Court, through its interim order last month, annulled GO 42, allowing the government to conduct local body elections with a total reservation of more than 50% for all categories.
The State Election Commission has already initiated the process of conducting Gram Panchayat elections in three phases.
Nominations for the first phase of elections in 4,326 villages and 37,459 wards across the state began on Thursday.
According to a notification issued by the Telangana State Election Commission on Tuesday, elections will be held for 12,728 Sarpanch posts and 1,12,242 wards on December 11, 14, and 17.
A total of 1.66 crore rural voters are eligible to vote in these elections.
