HC defers OBC quota hearing as 5 pleas remain pending in SC

Bhopal: The MP high court on Tuesday deferred hearing on a batch of petitions both challenging and supporting the hike in OBC reservation in state govt jobs and educational institutions, after being told that five related petitions pending in the Supreme Court are yet to be transferred to the HC. A division bench of chief justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and justice Vinay Saraf adjourned the matter to May 13. The case is now slated for three consecutive days of hearing.In March, the Supreme Court had transferred all the petitions on the issue, which it had transferred to itself for hearing from the MP high court, back to the high court for adjudication, but the five petitions directly filed in the apex court have not been transferred to the HC yet. During hearing of the case, the court was informed on behalf of the state govt that the special counsels appointed by it for presenting the case of the state govet will not appear in the case, and the state govt will be represented by advocate general Prashant Singh and senior apex court counsel KM Natrajan. The erstwhile Kamal Nath govt had sought to raise the OBC quota in the state to 27 per cent from existing 14 per cent through an ordinance in 2019, which was later replaced by an Act passed by the state assembly. The litigation over constitutional validity of the move has been going on since then. tnn