RAMRATAN SHARMA Vs. STATE OF M. P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been placed before us on a reference by the Division Bench of this Court consisting of Hon'ble Shri Justice U.N. Bhachawat and Hon'ble Shri Justice R.C. Shrivastava sitting at Gwalior. The question referred to the Full Bench reads:

(2.) THE number of seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has to be done on the principles of Article 330 (2) and Article 332 (3) of the Constitution and the reservation has been provided under section 29 (I) (b) (iii) of the M. P. Municipalities Act, 1961. This provision provides that the seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should be with reference to the total number of seats, The quest ion which arose was to as whether this total number of seats to be counted for this purpose of reservation will be total number of seats for elected councillors or total number of seats of the elected and selected councillors in the municipality. The Division Bench has referred to two decisions of this Court, viz,. Bhogiram Jatav v. Govt. of M. P. [I] and Nawal Singh v. Govt. of M. P. [2] and after considering these two decisions the Division Bench has referred the question quoted above to the Full Bench. Section 29 (1) reads:

(3.) THE language used in Clause (b) (111) of Section 29 makes the position clear that the number of seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has to be fixed and then they are to be allotted to the various wards. It, therefore, appears that the reservation of seats has to be made for elected councillors and that reservation has also to be made by allotting those seats to the wards which are so determined as contemplated in sub -clause (1) of clause (b) of S. 29( I) and it is this which weighed with the Division Bench when it took the view that for fixing the number of seats 10 be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes the number of elected councillors has to be taken into account and not the number of selected councillors.