The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) to notify the long-pending local body elections in the state within a span of four weeks. The apex court also clarified that the provision for reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in these polls must reflect the status as it stood prior to the submission of the Banthia Commission report in 2022.

According to PTI, a Bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh made it clear that grassroots democracy could no longer be stalled under the pretext of unresolved issues around reservation. The court strongly noted that local body elections had not been held for an unreasonably long time in Maharashtra, in some instances, extending up to five years, which it viewed as a serious lapse in upholding democratic governance at the local level.