E-Paper
OBC reservation in civic polls: HC constitutes vacation bench, hearing to continue today
The high court had earlier restrained the State Election Commission from issuing a notification for the civic polls.
The Allahabad high court’s Lucknow bench has said a special vacation bench would continue hearing public interest litigation (PIL) filed challenging the OBC reservation in civic polls, on Saturday, when the court closes for winter vacation. The court will reopen on January 2.
The high court had earlier restrained the State Election Commission from issuing a notification for the civic polls.
A division bench of Justices Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Saurabh Lavania listed the case for hearing on Saturday as the hearing could not be taken up on Friday due to paucity of time.
The state government has already submitted its affidavit in court in reply to the petitions challenging the reservation.
A PIL filed by one Vaibhav Pandey of Rae Bareli had challenged the state government’s December 5 notification on the OBC reservation in municipal corporations, nagar panchayats and nagar palikas.
In the notification issued under U.P. Municipalities (Reservation and Allotment of Seats and offices) Rules, 1994 of the Municipalities Act, 1916, the state government reserved four mayoral seats for OBCs.
Pandey, in the petition, pointed out that the government did not follow the triple-test exercise for reserving seats in the civic polls.
Additional advocate general Vinod Kumar Shahi, the counsel for the state government in this case, had requested the court to hear the case on priority as the polls were due.
