High Court orders stay on Panchayat polls due to lack of clarity on reservation
PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/Nainital
High Court orders stay on Panchayat polls due to lack of clarity on reservation
PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/Nainital
The Uttarakhand High Court has ordered a stay on the three-tier Panchayat elections as the gazette notification of the Reservation Rules for the Panchayat polls has not been issued so far. The HC ordered the stay on the Panchayat polls while hearing petitions against the reservation rotation process in the polls.
Hearing the petitions on Monday, the bench of Chief Justice G Narendra and Justice Alok Mahra ordered the stay due to the reservation rules gazette notification not being issued so far. The HC has directed the State government to submit its response in the matter.
Bageshwar resident Ganesh Dutt Kandpal and others had filed petitions in the HC stating that the State government had on June 9 issued an order forming new rules for the Panchayat polls. On June 11, the government issued another order nullifying the reservation rotation implemented for Panchayat polls so far while implanting a new rotation from this year, though the HC had already issued directions in this regard.
The petitioner stated that due to this order, the seat which was allocated to reserved category for the past three terms was reserved for the fourth term too, due to which general category aspirants are unable to contest the polls.
Earlier on Saturday, State Election Commissioner, Sushil Kumar had announced that the three-tier Panchayat elections will be held in 12 districts of Uttarakhand (barring Haridwar) in two phases. The voting in the first phase will be held on July 10 while the voting for the second phase will be on July 15. He had informed that the poll process will start on June 25 with the filing of the nomination papers till June 28. The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be done on June 29 while the candidates can withdraw their nomination papers on July 02. The voting for the first and second phase will be held on July 10 and 15 respectively while counting of votes will be held on July 19 for both the phases, Kumar had said. A total of 47,77,072 (23,10,996 female, 24,65,702 male) voters will exercise their franchise in the elections.
