Pleas challenging quota in civic bodies rejected

ALLAHABAD: The Allahabad High Court on Friday dismissed a bunch of writ petitions challenging the reservation and allotment of seats in local bodies elections.
Delivering the judgment, a division bench of Justice RK Agarwal and Justice M Ahmed had framed seven issues for consideration of the cause raised in the petitions.
The court while dealing with the questions raised in the petitions and after considering the issues held that petitions were not maintainable.
The bench further held that all the grounds stated by the petitioners can be availed by them by way of election petition and writ is not the only remedy. The court in its order made it clear that so far as reservation in local body election is concerned, the present election of local body is not the first election but since the writ petition has been dismissed as not maintainable, it was left to be considered by the state government and state election commission without disturbing the election programme.
All the writ petitions were opposed by advocate general SP Gupta and additional advocate general CB Yadav. Advocate KN Tripathi had argued that the case on behalf of the petitioners.