India, May 6 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed local body elections in Maharashtra, held up on account of challenge to reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) since 2022, to be notified and held within four months. The top court said the outcome of the elections would be subject to the court's final decision on the pending challenge to the state law extending 27% reservation for OBC in local body polls.

A bench headed by justice Surya Kant passed the order since elections to the local bodies have been stuck due to the top court's status quo order of August 2022. Some of these local bodies have not had elections at panchayat and gram sabha levels for the last five years.

In an interim direction passed in the matter, the bench,...