The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Monday restrained the State Election Commission from issuing a notification to conduct Urban Local Body elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The court also directed the state government not to make till Tuesday the final order based on its December 5 notification seeking objections to a draft order on reserving seats for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in ULBs.
The court will continue hearing the matter on Tuesday.
A bench of Justices DK Upadhyay and Saurabh Srivastava passed the order on a PIL moved by Vaibhav Pandey and other petitioners.
The petitioners have challenged the December 5 notification whereby the state sought objections to fixing of quota, if any, till Monday evening.
Passing the order, the bench said, ”Prima facie, what we feel is that in case the state government had any intention to conduct the elections as per the mandate of the Supreme Court in the case of Suresh Mahajan, it would not have… included the seats reserved for the OBC even in the draft order notified by the impugned notification of Dec 5, 2022.” ”Accordingly, it becomes imperative for us to ascertain as to whether in the process of reserving the seats for the purpose of elections of the Urban Local Bodies of Uttar Pradesh, the state government is following the mandate of the Suresh Mahajan case or not, hence we entertain these petitions and direct the State counsel to seek complete instructions by Tuesday,” it said.
In the Suresh Mahajan versus State of Madhya Pradesh case, the Supreme Court instructed all the state election commissions that instead of waiting for the report of OBC Commissions, they should announce election schedules when elections are due, and convert OBC seats into general category seats.
The bench has also extended the deadline for filing objections in pursuance to the state government notification till Monday midnight.
In the PIL, the petitioners have alleged that the entire exercise of reservation of seats in municipalities throughout the state was being carried out in complete derogation and defiance of the SC verdict in the Suresh Mahajan case.
Through the December 5 notification, it is clear that the state government is going to provide reservation to OBCs as well, the petitioners have said.
Opposing the plea, the state counsel argued it would only delay the election process, which would be against the very concept of democratic setup of municipalities.
The state counsel also argued that the petitioners could submit their objection in pursuance to the government notification and hence, the petitions were premature at this stage.
