LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Tuesday quashed the state government's draft notification on urban local body (ULB) elections and ordered holding the polls without reservation for the OBCs.
A division bench of Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Saurav Lavania annulled the draft notification issued by the Uttar Pradesh government on December 5 for reservation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the urban local body elections.
The verdict comes on the back of PILs challenging the preparation of the OBC reservation draft without following the triple-test formula prescribed by the Supreme Court. The high court allowed the UP government to notify the elections at the earliest while lifting the stay it had put on December 12.
No election without quota: CM
Reacting to the order, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath reiterated that the state will not hold elections without providing reservation to OBCs.
Stating that quotas will be allotted in the local bodies after holding a survey following Supreme Court guidelines, the CM added: "The election will not be held before the survey and reservation, and if need be, the state will go to the Supreme Court to challenge the Allahabad high court's order for immediate notification of elections."
"The Uttar Pradesh government will set up a commission in the perspective of urban body general elections and provide reservation facility to the citizens of Other Backward Classes (OBC) on the basis of triple test. Only after this, the urban body general elections will be conducted," tweeted Adityanath shortly after the high court's order.
Urban local bodies
Having 762 urban local bodies, the residents staying within the municipal wards have to elect mayors and chairpersons in the upcoming elections.
The urban development department had announced the reservation for the posts on December 5 and earmarked 27% seats for the OBC candidates.
Several individuals started approaching the high court thereafter, including petitioner Vaibhav Pandey, who pointed out that the reservation had been announced by the government without considering the triple-test formula mandated by the Supreme Court.
The bench comprising Justice Saurabh Lavania and DK Upadhyay clubbed a total of 93 petitions that were filed over various issues and took up the matter from December 12.
The state was directed to hold up the process of notifying the elections till the matter was heard on the same day.
Having heard the arguments of both sides the court pronounced its order on Tuesday.
The court said that the UP government was under obligation to reframe its policy in view of the Supreme Court’s orders and recommend the OBC reservation as per the triple-test formula.
But the state failed to do so.
While allowing the state to notify the elections on an immediate basis, the court directed that the OBC reserved seats will be notified as general or open ones.
The seats reserved for Scheduled caste and tribe individuals will remain unchanged.
The ones reserved for OBC women candidates shall become open women seats, said a senior officer.
Out of the 762 posts for the mayors and chairpersons, overall 205 seats were reserved for OBC candidates.
Advocate representing Pandey, who filed the leading public interest litigation, Sharad Pathak said, "We are happy that our contention to hold the elections as per the triple-test mandate was taken into consideration by the bench. Now onwards the local body elections will be announced after proper exercise and on the basis of the empirical data."
