Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to upload the OBC Commission’s report on OBC reservation in urban local bodies’ polls on the state Urban Development Department’s website within four days.
The state government had constituted the Uttar Pradesh Backward Classes Commission to study the representation of OBCs in the urban local bodies.
The responsibility of the Commission was to collect data on the political backwardness of the OBCs.
A division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manish Kumar passed the order on a writ petition filed by Vikas Agarwal.
Agarwal had challenged the state government’s draft notification issued on March 30, 2023, regarding reservation of Nighasan Nagar Panchayat in the Lakhimpur Kheri district.
In his writ, the petitioner had submitted before the high court that the Commission’s report was not in the public domain, making it impossible for him to file an objection.
“As regards other relief made in this petition, we see no reason to interfere at this stage for the reason that the petitioner has already been informed that the ‘Agarwal’ caste does not fall in the OBC category,” the court said.
“Now, when the petitioner is aware that the seat pertaining to the Nagar Panchayat Nighasan has been reserved for the OBC category and the petitioner does not belong to the same, other relief can be claimed at the appropriate stage as and when the need arises,” the court added.
The Supreme Court on March 27 permitted the State Election Commission to issue notifications to roll out the election process for local bodies in Uttar Pradesh within two days.
Thereafter, a draft notification on reservation in the urban local bodies’ polls was issued on March 30 and the government invited objections by April 6.
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