Dr. K. Krishna Murthy Vs UOI

Hon’ble Supreme Court of India observed on 11.05.2010, “ the right to vote has been held to be a statutory right and not a fundamental right and the same position has been consistently upheld in subsequent decisions…..With respect to the challenge against the constitutional validity of Art. 243-D(6) and 243-T(6) which enable the reservation of seats and chairperson posts in favour of backward classes, we are in agreement with the respondents that these are merely enabling provisions and it would be quite improper to strike them down as violative of the equality clause…..On the question of breaching this upper ceiling, the arguments made by the petitioners were a little misconceived since they had accounted for vertical reservations in favour of SC/ST/OBCs as well as horizontal reservations in favour of women to assert that the 50% ceiling had been breached in some of the States. This was clearly a misunderstanding of the position since the horizontal reservations in favour of women are meant to intersect with the vertical reservations in favour of SC/ST/OBC…..
(i) The nature and purpose of reservations in the context of local self-government is considerably different from that of higher education and public employment.
(ii) Article 243-D(6) and Article 243-T(6) are constitutionally valid since they are in the nature of provisions which merely enable State Legislatures.
(iii) We are not in a position to examine the claims about overbreadth in the quantum of reservations provided for OBCs under the impugned State Legislations since there is no contemporaneous empirical data. The onus is on the executive to conduct a rigorous investigation.
(iv) The upper ceiling of 50% vertical reservations in favour of SC/ST/OBCs should not be breached in the context of local self-government. Exceptions can only be made in order to safeguard the interests of Scheduled Tribes in the matter of their representation in panchayats located in the Scheduled Areas.
(v) The reservation of chairperson posts in the manner contemplated by Article 243-D(4) and 243-T(4) is constitutionally valid.