Reserved municipal office eligibility turns on the category of the elected seat, not caste or gender alone.

Article 243T, read with the Haryana Municipal Act and Election Rules, was interpreted to mean that reservation of a municipal President's office operates by the specific category of the elected seat, not by caste or gender alone. A member elected from a general women's seat could not contest the reserved office for Scheduled Castes women merely by belonging to a Scheduled Caste. The scheme of rotation and reservation required the contesting member to come from the relevant reserved electoral category. On that basis, the respondent was ineligible, and the member elected from the Scheduled Castes women category was entitled to hold the office.

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Issues: Whether, for the post of President of a municipality reserved for Scheduled Castes women, only a member elected from a ward reserved for Scheduled Castes women could contest, or whether any elected Scheduled Caste woman member could contest.

Analysis: Article 243T of the Constitution of India, read with section 10(5) and section 18 of the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973 and rule 70(4) of the Haryana Municipal Election Rules, 1978, contemplates reservation of the office of President by rotation among identified electoral categories. The category that matters is not merely caste or gender in isolation, but the specific seat from which the member has been elected. A member elected from a general women's seat does not become a candidate from the Scheduled Castes women category merely because she belongs to a Scheduled Caste. Rotation and reservation operate on the basis of the category of the elected seat, and the scheme would be defeated if all Scheduled Caste members were treated as one undifferentiated class for contesting the reserved office.

Conclusion: The respondent was not eligible to contest for the reserved presidential office, and the appellant, being the sole elected member from the Scheduled Castes women category, was rightly entitled to hold the office.

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