In news– After the Allahabad High Court ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to hold urban local body elections without reservation for OBCs because the ‘triple test’ requirement for the quota had not been fulfilled, the state Wednesday set up a commission for this purpose.
What is Triple test survey?
- The triple test requires the government to complete three tasks for finalisation of reservation to OBCs in the local bodies. These include:
- To set up a dedicated commission to conduct a rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness in local bodies;
- To specify the proportion of reservation required in local bodies in light of recommendations of the commission, so as not to fall foul of overbreadth;
- To ensure reservation for SCs/STs/OBCs taken together does not exceed an aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats.
- These triple test/conditions were outlined by the Supreme Court in the case of Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs. State of Maharashtra and others, decided on March 4, 2021.
- This is the first time that the triple test exercise will be carried out in Uttar Pradesh.
Note:
- The formula used for the OBC reservation in the 2022 local bodies was the same followed in the polls held in 1995, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2017.
- The elections were held on the basis of the estimates collected through the rapid surveys of the OBC families.
- Even the panchayat elections were based on the rapid surveys conducted in May 2015. And the same yardstick was followed in the 2021 rural body elections.
- The arrangement for reservation of backward classes in local bodies was made in the Uttar Pradesh Municipality Act, 1916, in 1994.
Source: The Indian Express
