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.
‘Govt. order ignored’
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 of 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.
Reservation cap breach
It was also submitted by the counsel for 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 %.
