UP Civic Polls Yogi government Supreme court verdict allahabad high court

UP Civic Body Election: The Yogi government has got a big relief from the Supreme Court regarding the civic body elections in Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court has stayed the order of the Allahabad High Court. The High Court had directed Uttar Pradesh to conduct urban local body elections without reservation for OBCs. The court said, within three months, the panel appointed by UP will have to decide on the issues related to OBC reservation for the local body elections in the state. The court said, after the end of the tenure of the UP local bodies, the administrators to whom their powers will be handed over, will not take major policy decisions.

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The state government, in its appeal filed against the December 27 order, had said that the High Court had set aside the December 5 draft notification, which provided for reservation of seats in urban body elections for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs besides women. Provision was made. The appeal, filed through advocate Ruchira Goyal, said that OBCs enjoy constitutional protection and the High Court erred in quashing the draft notification.

The Uttar Pradesh government recently constituted a five-member commission to look into all issues related to providing reservation to OBCs in urban local body elections. The committee will be headed by Justice (retd) Ram Avtar Singh. The four other members are retired Indian Administrative Service officers Chaubey Singh Verma, Mahendra Kumar, and former state legal advisors Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma and Brajesh Kumar Soni.

The Lucknow bench of the High Court had said that the state government should issue notification immediately as the tenure of various municipalities is going to end on January 31. Saying this, the court had quashed the draft notification of December 5. The court had directed the State Election Commission to hold elections by January 31 by transferring OBC seats to the general category in the draft notification.

The High Court gave this verdict on petitions challenging the drafting of OBC reservation without following the triple test formula laid down by the Supreme Court. According to the triple test formula, a commission should be set up to study in depth the nature of backwardness in the context of local bodies. The proportion of reservation should be fixed on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission and it should be ensured that the total limit of reservation does not exceed 50 percent.