Municipal elections will not be announced in UP till December 20, Allahabad High Court ban continues

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ordered to continue till December 20 the ban imposed on December 12 on issuing notification for municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh. Justice D.K. A division bench headed by Upadhyay gave this order during the hearing of a PIL alleging that the state government did not follow the procedure in implementing reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the municipal elections.

The state government sought three days time to file its counter affidavit, which was accepted by the court. Significantly, on Monday, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had put an interim stay on issuing notification to the State Election Commission (SEC) for holding municipal elections till Tuesday. This order was passed by a bench of Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Saurabh Srivastava while hearing separate petitions of Vaibhav Pandey and other petitioners.

What is the objection of the petitioner?

The petitioners have challenged the notification dated December 5, 2022, in which the state had sought objections to fix the reservation by Monday evening. The petitioners have accused the state government of not following due process in implementing OBC reservation in municipal elections. It has been said on his behalf that the Supreme Court had given its verdict in the case of Suresh Mahajan this year.

The judgment had clearly ordered that a triple test would be done before issuing OBC reservation in local body elections. If the formalities of the triple test could not be done, then elections will be held declaring all other seats as general seats except the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) seats. Let us tell you that on December 12, the court had banned, after which the ban continues.