The Jharkhand High Court has stepped into a significant legal dispute concerning the reservation of mayor positions in upcoming municipal elections. On Wednesday, the court formally instructed the state government and the State Election Commission to submit their responses to a petition that contests the current reservation policy for the mayor's posts in Dhanbad and Giridih.
The Petition and the Court's Directive
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Rajesh Shankar was presiding over the hearing. The petition was filed by Shantanu Kumar Chandra, who has raised serious objections against the government's policy for reserving the mayor's position in the civic polls. The court has given the authorities time to file their replies, and the case is scheduled for its next hearing on December 17.
Allegations of a Faulty Reservation Policy
The core of the petitioner's argument is that the state government has implemented a faulty and illogical reservation policy. According to the petition, while the mayor's post in Giridih has been reserved for a candidate from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, the corresponding post in Dhanbad has been placed in the unreserved category.
Chandra challenged this allocation, pointing out that the reservation for these powerful urban local body positions is based on the 2011 population census, which he argues is too outdated to reflect current demographic realities. He provided specific population figures to highlight the alleged discrepancy: the Scheduled Caste population in Dhanbad is approximately 2 lakh, yet its mayor's post is unreserved. In contrast, Giridih has an SC population of around 30,000, but its mayor's post is reserved for the SC category.
Categorization of Civic Bodies
The controversy also touches upon how the State Election Commission has classified the urban bodies. The nine civic bodies in Jharkhand have been divided into two distinct categories. Ranchi and Dhanbad form the first category. The second category comprises seven other municipal corporations: Adityapur, Hazaribag, Deoghar, Giridih, Medininagar, Chas, and Phusro. The petition argues that the reservation policy, applied within this framework, is not aligned with the actual population data, leading to unjust outcomes.
The outcome of this case is being closely watched, as it has the potential to reshape the electoral landscape for key urban centers in Jharkhand and set a precedent for how reservation policies are formulated for local body elections.
