UP govt files SLP in Supreme Court against High Court decision on municipal polls

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court, opposing the Allahabad High Court's order for holding the urban body elections without reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBC).

The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench on Tuesday ordered the government to conduct urban body elections in UP without implementing the OBC quota.

As per the court order, all the seats reserved for OBCs will now be considered general.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Yogi Adityanath government constituted a Backward Classes Commission in the state to look into the matter.

The commission, which has five members, will be chaired by retired Judge Ram Avtar Singh.

"On the basis of the commission's report, the backward class reservation will be decided for UP's municipal body elections," the government spokesman said.

The commission will present its report after conducting a triple test for reservation for the OBC class in the body elections. Based on that report only, the government will fix the OBC quota in municipal elections.

Reservation for backward classes in local bodies was made in the Uttar Pradesh Municipality Act, 1916 in 1994. In order to give reservations for the backward classes, a provision has also been made in the Act to conduct a survey.

According to this, a rapid survey of backward classes is to be conducted by the state government in every municipal body.

Since 1991, all the elections to the municipal bodies (1995, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2017) have been conducted on the basis of these provisions given in the Act and the report of the Rapid Survey.