By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday cleared the decks for the holding of panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh with seat reservation for marginalised sections based on the 2001 census.
The apex court also issued notice to Pradeshiya Jan Jati Vikas Manch on the petition by the Uttar Pradesh government challenging the Allahabad High Court’s Sep 16 order imposing restrictions on the polls.
The panchayat elections will be held Sep 23-Oct 30.
The decks were cleared after an apex court bench of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice A.K. Patnaik stayed the operation of high court orders by which the state government was restrained from deciding the proportional representation of the seats for the Scheduled Tribes in panchayats on the basis of the 2001 census.
The high court by its impugned order directed the state government to hold a rapid survey in the villages and at the district level in order to provide proportional representation to the members of the Scheduled Tribes who were shifted from the list of scheduled castes under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Act, 2002.
The high court by its Sep 16, 2010 order had directed the state government to revise the list of the seats of chiefs of village panchayats in order to proportionately accommodate the migrated entrants to the Scheduled Tribes list.
By the same order, the high court said that the number of such seats occupied by the scheduled castes be correspondingly reduced.
The high court said that the survey would take place in the districts where the number of such shifted scheduled tribes was large.
The state government contended that according to the census act the elections could only be conducted on the basis of the last census of 2001.
The government contended that the high court order was contrary to the provisions of the constitution and the census act.
The court was told that the state government was under the constitutional mandate of holding the panchayat elections before the expiry of the five-year term of the existing panchayats.