High court vacates stay on Panchayat polls in Uttarakhand   

The Uttarakhand High on Friday vacated the stay on panchayat elections in the state but asked the state government to respond to PILs alleging irregularities in the state's reservation roster for the polls.

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After hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the reservation roster for panchayat elections in the state, a division bench comprising Chief Justice G Narendar and Justice Alok Mahara vacated the stay on panchayat elections in the state.

The bench directed the state election commission to release a fresh schedule, extending the earlier poll schedule, which was cancelled by three days.

The court also asked the government to respond to the issues raised by the petitioners within three weeks.

The pleas raised serious questions over the allocation of reservation in block pramukh and district panchayat president seats.

The petitioners said many seats in the reservation roster were under representation of the same class for a long time in violation of Article 243 of the Constitution and Supreme Court orders passed from time to time.

Advocate general S N Babulkar and chief standing counsel C D Rawat said after the report of the National Commission for Backward Classes, it was necessary to declare the previous reservation roster as void and issue a fresh one for the current Panchayat elections.

The high court had stayed the panchayat elections in the state on June 23 at a time when it had already been notified by the state election commission.

The commission had also announced its schedule saying that the panchayat elections would be held in the state in two phases on July 10 and 15.

However, it had to cancel the earlier schedule for the polls following the high court's stay.