By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
Garhwal Post Bureau
Nainital, 11 Sep: The Uttarakhand High Court today heard a series of petitions challenging the state government’s policy on reservations for zila panchayat chairman posts. The Court also questioned absence of a clear framework in this regard. A division bench comprising Chief Justice G Narendar and Justice Subhash Upadhyay, after hearing the arguments, fixed 18 September as the next date of hearing.
Appearing for the petitioners, Supreme Court senior advocate Devadutt Kamat submitted that the reservation carried out for the three-tier elections was in violation of the prescribed rules.
According to the case details, zila panchayat chairman candidate Jitendra Sharma along with others approached the High Court, contending that the government conducted the three-tier panchayat elections on the basis of the 2011 census. They argued that, since then, the demographic ratios in several districts had changed significantly. At present, Haridwar district has the highest OBC population, followed by Uttarkashi, while Udham Singh Nagar and Dehradun occupy the third and fourth positions, respectively. The petitioners maintained that, if the rules were properly followed, the reserved seats should have been allocated to Haridwar and Uttarkashi. Instead, the government made its reservation assessment across 13 districts but chose not to hold elections in Haridwar.
The petitioners alleged that the reservation assessment adopted for the recent elections lacked a sound basis. They stressed that elections were withheld in the district with the highest OBC population (Haridwar), whereas in other districts with smaller populations, reservation rules were ignored. They have demanded a stay on the current exercise and sought a fresh reservation roster prepared in accordance with the rules and not merely on the outdated 2011 census.
