SC nod for municipal polls in Uttar Pradesh

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar, which refused to stay the four-phase elections, said the polls would be held subject to the outcome of the petition before it.

The court had on June 5 decided to examine the plea against the UP government's May 25 notification reserving the posts of chairperson for people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes and women in some of the state's municipal bodies.

Rakesh Gautam, a general category candidate for the post of Khair Nagar Palika chairperson in Aligarh, had urged the apex court to stay the impugned notification issued by the state government.

He had submitted that the poll process was vitiated as the posts were being reserved indiscriminately without any rationale and in a manner, discriminatory to the general category candidates.

In all, there are 630 local bodies comprising 13 municipal corporations, 194 'nagar palika parishads' and 423 'nagar panchayats' in the state.

The petitioner had said that reservation of the posts of chairperson can be done only by rotation. In other words, if a post is reserved for a particular term, then in the subsequent term, it has to be de-reserved, allowing a general category candidate to contest for it.

Elections to the nagar palikas in UP were to be held from June 12 and would conclude by July 10, according to the petitioner. (More)