OBC reservation in UP urban local body polls: Allahabad HC to hear case on Saturday

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court will hear the case related to urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh on the first day of its winter vacation on Saturday. The bench on Friday could not hear arguments on the issue of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the urban local body elections. While giving its order on petitions pertaining to the elections, a bench of Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Saurabh Lavania said the stay on issuing notification for the polls would continue till Saturday.

While the high court breaks for its winter vacation from Saturday, the bench said it would hear the case during the recess as the matter pertained to local bodies' elections and democracy.

The court ordered to present the petitions at 10.15 am on Saturday after taking permission from the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court or the Senior Justice of the Lucknow bench.

In the order, the bench noted that it had heard the arguments of the petitioners' lawyer LP Mishra on December 21 but thereafter, due to rush of work, it could not hear the matter either on Thursday or Friday.

The bench said the subject of the PILs related to elections to 17 municipal corporations and around 761 other local bodies known variously as nagar panchayats and nagar palika parishads.

With the current term of these local bodies ending in January, the court observed, ''The local bodies are formed by democratically elected representatives. The process of elections needs to be initiated as early as possible and the same cannot be permitted to remain shrouded in uncertainty.'' Under the circumstances, the bench decided to hear the matter on Saturday.

The bench passed the order as lawyers for both sides agreed that the matter should be heard and decided as early as possible.

The high court bench directed the case to be listed for Saturday after taking necessary permission from the Chief Justice or Senior Judge.

On December 12, the high court restrained the State Election Commission from issuing a notification to conduct urban local body polls following objections that the state government did not not observe the triple test formula suggested by the Supreme Court for deciding OBC reservations for elections.

The Lucknow bench is hearing petitions challenging the OBC reservation prepared on the basis of a rapid survey by the government.

The petitioners plead that in compliance of the apex court order, the state government must follow the triple test formula to constitute a dedicated commission to study the political backwardness of OBCs in the state and then fix reservation. The state government pleaded that it had conducted the rapid survey, which was as good as the Supreme Court's suggested triple test formula.