OBC reservation in urban polls: Samajwadi Party files SLP in apex court

Samajwadi Party on Wednesday filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court, opposing the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench order to hold the urban body elections without reservations for Other Backward Classes.

Advocate Rajpal Kashyap, representing the party, said, "On the direction of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, we have filed SLP in SC. We hope that the court's verdict would preserve reservations for OBC."

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on December 27 quashed a December 5 Uttar Pradesh government order proposing reservations for OBCs in civic elections. It ordered the State Election Commission to "immediately" notify elections to the urban local bodies without OBC quotas.

Claiming that HC's verdict was against OBC reservation because of their poor lobbying as BJP is against reservation, "SP's Advocate said, "We have approached SC for the same. SP will fight for OBC reservation under the supervision of Akhilesh Yadav."

Challenging the same order, the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday approached the Supreme Court, for which a hearing is scheduled for today.

The High Court had said that until the "triple test" as mandated by the Supreme Court is completed in all respects by the State government, no reservation for the Backward Class of citizens shall be provided in the urban local body polls.

The High Court had asked the State government to set up a commission to conduct an empirical study on the nature and backwardness to be able to have OBC quotas in the next election to urban local bodies but stressed that it could not pause the election process till this humongous and time taking task was completed.

After the order, Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in a statement, said his government would constitute a survey commission to ensure that the benefits of the reservation are provided to the OBCs on the basis of the "triple test".

The government later constituted a five-member committee to carry out a survey to ensure adequate reservation for OBCs in the State urban local body polls by fulfilling the "triple test" formality as mandated by the Supreme Court.

The High Court had directed to include reservations for women as per the constitution.

The order of the High Court came on a bunch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) alleging that the entire exercise of reservation of seats in the municipalities is being carried out by the State government in "complete derogation and defiance" of the mandate of the Supreme Court.

On December 5, the Urban Development Department of the Uttar Pradesh government announced reservations for the seats of the Mayor in municipal corporations and Chairpersons of Nagar Palika Parishads and Nagar Panchayats.

( With inputs from ANI )