A bench of Justices Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Rohit Ranjan Agarwal rejected the state poll panel's undertaking to hold the panchayat elections in the state by May 2021.
The Allahabad High Court directed the Uttar Pradesh Election Commission on Thursday to hold panchayat elections by April 30. A bench of Justices Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Rohit Ranjan Agarwal rejected the state poll panel's undertaking to hold the panchayat elections in the state by May 2021.
A petition was filed by Vinod Upadhyay, former village pradhan of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh. He sought directions to the state election commission to issue notifications for holding the village panchayat election in accordance with the provisions of Article 243-E of Constitution. The petition also sought a direction to the state government not to cause hindrance in the functioning of zila panchayat till then.
On Wednesday, the counsel for the election commission had placed before the court a schedule of the election. The bench went through the schedule and said that the panchayat election should have been held on or before January 13, 2021. "As per the mandate of the Constitution, the election of the panchayat should have been conducted on or before January 13, 2021. The schedule of the election given by the Election Commission shows its completion in May 2021. Prima facie, we cannot accept the schedule given by the Election Commission otherwise pursuant to the mandate of the Constitution, elections should have taken place before January 13, 2021," the bench said.
The five-year term of Uttar Pradesh gram panchayats and village panchayat head had expired on December 25. Following which, the UP government had asked the district administration to take over the panchayat administration. After receiving the notice, the district administration had appointed assistant development officers to administer all panchayat bodies.
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