SC agrees to hear U'khand govt plea against HC order

The Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear Uttarakhand government' plea challenging the state high court verdict which said that a person giving birth to third child or more after an amendment to law took effect on July 25 this year, would be disqualified from contesting elections to Panchayati Raj institutions.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari issued notices to the persons, on whose plea the high court had delivered verdict on September 19, seeking their responses on the state government's appeal.

A division bench of the high court had read down a provision of the Uttarakhand Panchayati Raj Act, 2016, which was amended this year, and declared that the disqualification from contesting elections to Panchayati Raj institution "would apply only to cases where persons, having two children or more, have a third child or more after July 25" this year.

The high court verdict had came on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of some provisions of the Uttarakhand Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2019, which were notified on July 25 this year.

One of the provisions of the amended Act stipulated that a person shall be disqualified for being appointed and for being a 'pradhan', 'up-pradhan' and a member of the gram panchayat, if he has more than two living children.

The high court had made it clear in its verdict that the provision "shall not be understood as disqualifying those who already have three or more children before July 25, 2019".

Panchayat elections in Uttarakhand would be held in 12 districts of the state in three phases from October 6 to October 16 and the results would be announced on October 21.