As the caste survey begins on November 6 in Telangana, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has decided to constitute a Dedicated Commission for enumeration of Backward Classes.
The Dedicated Commission would be constituted on Monday (November 4) and the decision was taken at a high level review meeting held at Chief Minister’s residence on Sunday (November 03) night. It was attended by ministers N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Damodar Raja Narsimha, D. Sridhar Babu, TPCC president and MLC Mahesh Kumar Goud and senior officials.
Mr. Revanth Reddy while reviewing the caste survey reiterated his commitment and the government’s firm adherence to the court’s judgement for implementing its policy decision.
The constitution of the Dedicated Commission for enumeration of BCs will remove all the legal hurdles that were being raised by the BC groups as well as political parties that questioned the government’s sincerity terming it as a futile exercise if done by the recently constituted Telangana Backward Classes Commission headed by G. Niranjan.
The decision comes in the wake of a direction from the Telangana High Court to constitute the Dedicated Commission on a writ petition filed by Backwad Classes leader R Krishnaiah.
Justice Surepalli Nanda last week directed the government to constitute the ‘Dedicated Commission’ within two weeks in place of ‘Backward Classes Commission’ to conduct an empirical inquiry over reservations for BCs in local bodies. The writ petition argued that the Telangana government entrusting the job of gathering empirical data to the Backward Classes Commission was against the judgement of the Supreme Court.
Citing the Supreme Court verdict in the “Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs State of Maharashtra” case, the Judge said that the Dedicated Commission should be independent and with a specific purpose of determining the backwardness of communities. The Judge said the government’s decision to entrust the work to the Backward Classes Commission was against the spirit of the Supreme Court verdict.
Earlier, BRS leader Dasoju Sravan Kumar had pointed out that the government’s move to conduct the caste survey without the constitution of a Dedicated Commission would not stand the legal scrutiny and would be a futile exercise. The only way out was appointing a Dedicated Commission for the purpose.
Published - November 03, 2024 10:13 pm IST
