The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Friday restrained the state government and the State Election Commission (SEC) from finalizing reservations for upcoming panchayat elections in UP.

Hearing a PIL petition filed by one Ajay Kumar, a bench comprising Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Manish Mathur, on Friday, directed the government and the State Election Commission to furnish their response on the issue raised by the petitioner within 24 hours. The court has fixed March 15 as the next date of hearing.

The petitioner has challenged an order of the state government issued on February 11, 2021 regarding reservation in elections. Petitioner's counsel, Mohd Altaf Mansoor, said the government had issued UP Panchayat Raj (Reservation and Allotment of Seats and Offices) Rules in 1994, whereby it had provided that the base year for applying reservation on seats by rotation would be 1995.

Subsequently, the government issued another notification on September 16, 2015 providing that the base year would be considered as 2015. The government applied reservation in zila and kshetra panchayat elections on this basis in 2015 elections.

When the petitioner's lawyer said the government was going to issue final reservation on March 17, 2021, the bench passed the interim order restraining the authorities from finalizing the reservation for panchayat elections.

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