HC stays release of final list of reserved seats till March 15

THE COURT LISTED THE CASE FOR THE NEXT HEARING ON MARCH 15.

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Friday stayed the publication of the final list of seats reserved for the panchayat polls till March 15.

The stay comes even as the district magistrates were scheduled to release the final list of reserved seats in their respective districts on Saturday and Sunday.

A division bench of Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Manish Mathur passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Ajay Kumar, challenging the state government’s decision to take 1995 as the base year, instead of 2015, for reserving the seats.

“Considering the aforesaid submission, it is provided that till the next date of listing, the opposite parties (state government) shall not finalise the reservations to be provided in terms on Rule 4 of Rules of 1994 (for panchayat polls),” the court said.

The petitioner pointed out that ignoring the government order (GO) dated September 16, 2015, the opposite parties (state government through additional chief secretary panchayat raj) were proceeding to reserve the seats in terms of Rule 4 of the Rules of 1994 by taking 1995 as the base year, instead of 2015.

It was further submitted that GO dated September 16, 2015 is still in existence and the previous elections held in the year 2015 were also in accordance with the aforesaid government order, the petitioner’s counsel said.

They further stated that even otherwise, in view of the changed demographic situation as noticed by the state government itself in the GO issued on September 16, 2015, it did not stand to reason that the base year for the purposes of reserving seats in terms of Rule 4 of Rules of 1994 should be taken as 1995.

The court listed the case for the next hearing on March 15.