Prohibition on issuance of civic body election notification till 20, High Court orders on the request of the state government

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has now stayed the issuing of notification for local body elections in the state till December 20. Along with this, the state government was also ordered not to issue the final order till December 20 under the provisional reservation notification issued on December 5. The court gave this order while hearing a PIL filed on the issue of proper reservation benefits to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and rotation of seats. Earlier, the court had also sought complete information from the state government in the matter. At the time of the hearing on Wednesday, a request was made to give three days' time to the government to present its reply. Granting which the court extended the interim stay imposed earlier till December 20 and fixed the next hearing of the case on December 20.

A division bench of Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Justice Saurabh Srivastava gave this order on a public interest litigation filed by Rae Bareli resident social worker Vaibhav Pandey. In this, the issues of giving proper reservation benefits to the backward classes and rotation of seats have been raised in the local body elections. The petitioner says that under the decision of the Supreme Court, no reservation can be given to OBCs until the state government completes the formalities of the triple test. The state government did not conduct any such test which is in complete violation of the Supreme Court's precedent. It also argued that without completing this formality, the government issued a provisional reservation notification on December 5 last. It is clear from this that the state government is going to give reservation to OBCs. Along with this, it has been requested that rotation of seats should also be done as per rules. The petitioner urged that the notification of the election should be issued only after removing these deficiencies.

The government counsel had opposed the plea saying that the government's notification of December 5 was merely a draft order. On which the government has sought objections. In such a situation, the aggrieved petitioner and other people can file their objections on this. Thus, this petition has been filed prematurely. On this, the court, while accepting the hearing of the petition on Monday, had directed the State Election Commission not to issue the election notification till Wednesday. Along with this, the state government was also directed not to issue the final order based on the draft order issued under the notification dated December 5, till Wednesday. The court has now extended this interim stay order till December 20.