The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea challenging the legitimacy of the delimitation exercise for zilla parishads, panchayat samitis, and other local bodies in the state, emphasizing that theare cannot be "any further impediment" in the conduct of local body polls in Maharashtra. The court made it clear that it will not allow litigation intended to stall the electoral process.
"Any appeal that would cause the polls to be postponed will not be accepted. It appears that all of these petitions are an attempt to postpone the elections. As we already instructed, the elections must take place by January 31. A court led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi declared, "There cannot be any further impediment in the conduct of polls."

The bench stated that the court will not intervene to interfere with or derail the schedule once the State Election Commission (SEC) has released it and the Supreme Court has issued categorical directives. It emphasized, "We are not going to entertain any petition that could delay the polls."

The remarks were made in response to Nikhil K. Kolekar's petition, which contested the SEC divisional commissioners' (DCs') delegation of authority to approve final delimitation recommendations. In his appearance as the petitioner, senior advocate Sudhanshu Choudhary contended that the SEC was legally the only body with the authority to approve the division of electoral constituencies and that giving this authority to state government officials amounted to an abdication of its constitutional duty to ensure independent and efficient operation.

However, the bench was not persuaded. The court cited the Bombay High Court's September 30 ruling and noted that the petitioner had not contested the initial correspondence that the SEC and state government used to provide DCs permission to carry out the assignment. The bench stated that the high court had examined comprehensive materials and determined that the final decisions made by DCs concerning the delimitation of Kolhapur, Satara, and Sangli—the main point of contention in the petition—were lawful.
The Supreme Court decided to leave the legal subject of delegation of powers available for consideration in a suitable case even as it dismissed the request.The same bench's November 28 directive, which cleared the way for elections to over 280 municipal councils and nagar panchayats on December 2 and issued a calibrated directive regarding seats where the combined reservation for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes (OBCs) exceeds 50%, closely followed Monday's order.
The results of 40 municipal councils and 17 nagar panchayats, where reservation surpasses the ceiling, shall be subject to the court's final instructions, the bench ruled, allowing the polls to take place as planned.

Elections to 336 panchayat samitis and 32 zila parishads seats, where the election process has not yet begun, may take place for bodies where the reservation is less than 50%, the bench clarified at the same time.
The bench emphasized that elections must take place even while reserve issues are still controversial and unresolved, especially with regard to the Banthia Commission report. A three-judge bench will hear the petitions pertaining to OBC reservation and the legitimacy of the Banthia Commission's conclusions on January 21.

Maharashtra's local body elections, which have been held since 2022, have been a hotly debated topic that has led to numerous court rounds and directives from the highest court. In September, the Supreme Court mandated that all local body elections be finished by January 31, 2026. A number of petitions filed with the Supreme Court later claimed that the state's decision to grant OBCs a 27% reservation based on the Banthia Commission report had caused the aggregate quota in a number of poll-bound local bodies to surpass the 50% cutoff point, which the Supreme Court had set as the upper limit for granting reservation in local body polls.