LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Saturday reserved its verdict on the issue of urban local body polls due in Uttar Pradesh this year's end. The bench had restricted the state Election Commission from announcing the notification of the polls.
The division bench, comprising Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Saurabh Lavania, completed the hearing on the bunch of PILs challenging the OBC reservation fixed by the state government inwards mayoral and municipality chairman seats.
On Saturday, when the court decided to continue hearing the petitions over civic polls despite the commencement of winter vacations, the petitioners' lawyer LP Mishra addressed the court at length. Thereafter, Additional Chief Standing Counsel Amitabh Rai argued the matter in detail on behalf of the state government. Rai said that the rapid survey was as good as that of triple test formula.
The common refrain of the petitioners was that the state government had reserved four of the 17 mayoral seats for OBC without following the triple test norm. In fact, mayoral seats in Aligarh, Mathura-Vrindavan, Meerut and Prayagraj are reserved for OBC. While Aligarh and Mathura-Vrindavan have been reserved for OBC women, the latter two are for OBC candidates in general.
During the course of hearing, the state government submitted that it had decided on the proposed OBC quota in Urban Civic Bodies on the basis of the survey conducted ahead of 2017 urban local body elections in the state.
The state government also claimed that 2017 survey could be considered as the basis for the proposed quota in urban civic bodies currently as it had adhered to the apex court's mandate of triple test in 2017 while fixing the quota issue.
While reserving its order on Saturday, the bench prima facie seemed reluctant to accept the plea of the state government. The final order over the petitions will be delivered on December 27.