The Allahabad High Court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to implement reservation and allotment of seats in the panchayat polls as per the 2015 rules as it quashed a recent government order regarding reservation in the rural body polls.
Th Lucknow Bench also directed the State government to complete the entire exercise of reservations by March 27 and hold the elections by May 10.
The order was passed by the court on a PIL seeking quashing of the government order dated February 11, arguing that it proceeded to reserve seats by taking 1995 as the base year instead of 2015, ignoring the government order of September 2015.
Counsel for the petitioner Ajay Kumar said that in the Government Order September 16, 2015 it was indicated that due to substantial demographic changes in the districts of the State in the Gram panchayat and Kshetra Panchayat territories in view of the census of 2001 and 2011, it was no longer conducive to have 1995 as the base year for purposes of applying reservation as per Rule 4 of Rules of 1994.
Provisions for reservations in the elections are to be determined as per the Uttar Pradesh Panchayat Raj (Reservation and Allotment of Seats and Offices) Rules, 1994, with Rule 4 providing allotment of seats for reservation on rotational basis.
It was also submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that the provisions for reservation as brought by the fresh government order would result in more than 60% seats in a district being reserved, which would be violative of various judgments of the Supreme Court and that it would also violate the maximum cap fixed with respect to reservation of Backward Class, 27 %.
Upon applicability of the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of Vikas Kishanrao Gawali vs. State of Maharashtra and others (supra), it is clear that the provisions of the impugned Government Order would have the effect of exceeding the prescribed vertical limit of reservation of 50% , which cannot be permitted, a division bench of Justices Manish Mathur and Ritu Raj Awasthi court ruled.
The State Advocate General said the entire exercise for providing reservation in the Panchayat Elections would to be done a fresh taking 2015 as the base year, and as such it would not be possible to finalise reservation of constituencies by March 17.
The State counsel also said the government has no objection in implementing the reservation and allotment of seats of panchayats elections taking 2015 as the base year.
