The Allahabad High Court on 14 October ordered Uttar Pradesh to complete village-panchayat elections within three months under the existing reservation system, including 27% OBC reservation. It rejected challenges to the administrator and election-notification provisions while allowing the dedicated commission to continue its empirical inquiry.
Judge / Bench — Justice Ajit Kumar and Justice Garima Prashad.
Advocates appearing — Petitioners — Birendra Kumar (in person), Jalaj Singh, Kripa Shankar Yadav, Mohammad Qais, Mohd Aadil Raza, Neha Rani, Pawan Kumar Yadav, Raghav Arora, Rajneesh Kumar Srivastava, Ray Sahab Yadav, Satyvendra Singh Yadav, Shashank Pandey, Priyanka Srivastava, Vinod Kumar Jaiswal; Ashish Kumar Singh, Sr Adv, with Rajneesh Kumar Srivastava, Dhirendra Kumar Srivastava, Raghav Arora and Raj Kumar Singh. Amicus — Samir Sharma. Respondents — Udayan Nandan, Aditi Pandey, CSC, Kaushlesh Pratap Singh, Prakhar Saran Srivastava, Pramod Shukla, Ramesh Kumar Tiwari, Satendra Kumar Singh and Ten Singh. State — Manish Goyal, AAG, with A.K. Goyal, ACSC. State Election Commission — Tarun Agarwal, Sr Adv, with Prakhar Saran Srivastava and Satyendra Kumar Singh. Dedicated Commission — Shashi Nandan, Sr Counsel, with Udayan Nandan.