The Uttar Pradesh government has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the decision of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court regarding reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in elections to local bodies in the state.
The petition filed by the state government demands a stay on the decision of the High Court. The state government apprised the Supreme Court that a 5-member commission had been constituted to resolve the matter regarding reservation. The petition also prayed that local body elections with OBC quota be held after the commission submits its report, which is expected in six months.
On Wednesday itself, the Uttar Pradesh government had notified the formation of the commission chaired by retired Justice Ram Avtar Singh and comprising retired IAS officers Chob Singh Verma and Mahendra Kumar, former legal adviser Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma and former additional legal adviser Brijesh Kumar Soni.
The Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow bench of Justices Saurabh Lavania and DK Upadhyaya had directed the State Election Commission to go ahead with the local body elections immediately without providing for OBC quota, while including women’s quota.
Several petitions had challenged the state government’s move to earmark OBC reservation in the civic polls without meeting the triple test requirement as mandated by the Supreme Court.
In the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case dealing with OBC quota for local body polls in Maharashtra, the Supreme Court had set three points as part of the triple test. The formation of the commission by the Uttar Pradesh government meets the first point. The other two are that following the commission’s recommendations, the state should specify the proportion of reservation for each local body to keep it from violating the cap on quota and lastly, not exceeding the total 50 per cent reservation cap for SC/ST and OBCs.