The Supreme Court on Tuesday in an interim order ordered local body elections in Maharashtra to be notified within four weeks and completed within four months, Live Law reported.

However, it allowed the Election Commission to approach it in case further time was required.

The elections in 27 municipal corporations including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 243 nagar parishads and 289 rural panchayats, have been stalled since 2022 due to a case in the Supreme Court reservation for Other Backward Classes.

The terms of these representatives for various bodies ended between 2020 and 2022.

“Today, bureaucrats are occupying all the municipal corporations and panchayats and are making major policy decisions,” the court was quoted as saying by The Hindu. “A complete democratic process has been stalled due to this litigation. Officers have no accountability. Why not allow the elections as per the present data?”

OBC communities account for over 38% of Maharashtra's population, a significant vote bank.

The Maharashtra government had announced 27% reservation for OBCs in local bodies. But in 2021, the decision was struck down by the Supreme Court because it breached the 50% limit the court had set on the total number of reservations.

In 2022, the Maharashtra government again announced 27% reservation in certain rural and smaller urban bodies based on the recommendations of the Jayant Kumar Banthia Commission, which was formed in March that year.

In August 2022, the top court had ordered that status quo be maintained in the matter. The Banthia Commission report was also challenged through petitions filed before the court.

Since then the matter has been under judicial review.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed that elections be held based on the reservation framework that existed before the report was submitted.

The court noted that since elected bodies have a fixed term, there would be no irreversible harm to those seeking changes to existing laws for including or excluding certain OBC communities, Live Law reported.

Based on Tuesday’s interim order, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to expedite the hearing of its plea challenging the Election Commission’s move to recognize the Eknath Shinde faction as the official party and allot it the bow and arrow symbol.

The party contended that since the court had ordered local body elections to be held, the petition needed to be heard urgently.

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