The court mandated that reservation laws for elections must prioritize women in the Scheduled Caste category to ensure compliance with statutory requirements and support gender justice.

1. The petitioner, who is a voter of the Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda and belongs to Scheduled Caste (Woman) Category, has called in question the legality and validity of the notification dated 27-8-2015 (Annexure - P - 1), whereby acting under sub-rule (3) of R.9 of the Chhattisgarh Municipalities (Reservation of Office of Mayor and President) Rules, 1999 (henceforth 'the Rules, 1999'), the State Government has reserved the post of Mayor of Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda for the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste Category. The petitioner claims that the said post should have been reserved for Scheduled Caste (woman) category.

2. Brief facts, necessary to be referred for determination of the issue involved in the present writ petition, are that by notification dated 8-6-2015 issued under S. 7 of the Chhattisgarh Municipalities Act, 1956 (for short 'the Act, 1956') the State Government established and constituted the Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda in Durg District. Prior to the notification, there existed a Municipal Council, Bhilai - Charoda, therefore, the entire area comprising within the boundaries of existing Municipal Council, Bhilai - Charoda were included in the boundaries of the Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda.

3. For holding election of the newly constituted Municipal Corporation, the State Government initiated the process of reservation of the post of Mayor for which the Director, Department of Urban Administration and Development was appointed as Prescribed Authority in accordance with the provisions contained in the Rules, 1999. By the impugned notification, the post of Mayor of Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda was eventually reserved for Scheduled Caste category, which is under assail in this petition.

4. It is the case of the petitioner that as per 2011 census, the population of members belonging to Scheduled Caste category in all the Corporation area comes to 451763, which comes to 12.54% of the total population of the Municipal Corporations of the State. As per R.5 of the Rules, 1999, the percentage of Scheduled Caste population i.e. 12.54% was divided by 100 and multiplied by 13, which comes to 1.630, which being more than 1½, it is to be rounded off as 2 in terms of sub-rule (5) of R.5 of the Rules, 1999. Based on this calculation, 2 posts were required to be reserved for Scheduled Caste category and as per R.5(3), R.1 post is required to be reserved for Scheduled Caste (woman) category.

5. Based on the above facts, learned counsel for the petitioner would argue that not reserving the post of Mayor of Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda for Scheduled Caste (woman) category affects the petitioner - s right to contest the election from the said category and moreover the reservation has not been made in accordance with the Rules, therefore, the impugned notification deserves to be quashed.

6. Per contra, learned counsel appearing for the State would argue that prior to the constitution of the Municipal Corporation, Bhilai - Charoda there were 12 Municipal Corporations in the State for which process for reservation was completed before the election held in 2014, out of those 12 Corporations, 1 post of Mayor was reserved for Scheduled Caste, 1 post for Scheduled Tribe category and 3 posts were reserved for Other Backward Class category, whereas 7 posts were unreserved. Out of 5 seats reserved for SC / ST / OBC category, 1 seat was reserved for woman category belonging to OBC and out of 7 seats belonging to unreserved category, 3 posts were reserved for General (women) Unreserved Category. It is, thus, argued