[BREAKING] Supreme Court stays Allahabad High Court direction allowing urban local body polls sans OBC reservation

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Allahabad High Court's direction to the Uttar Pradesh government to hold pending urban local body elections without any reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). (State of Uttar Pradesh v. Vaibhav Pandey and anr).A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha remarked that holding elections without reservation for OBCs would not be correct, even as a constitutional vacuum in terms of vacant seats cannot be allowed."Pending further orders, such direction shall remain stayed. To ensure that administration of local bodies is not hampered, the government will be at liberty to issue delegation and financial powers. This is subject to the caveat that no major policy decision shall be taken by the administrator," the top court ordered. The Bench also issued notice on all the applications, including one by the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission. .The Uttar Pradesh government had on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court verdict in a batch of pleas against the State government's draft notification to provide OBC reservation in the elections without fulfilling the triple test formality.A High Court Bench of Justices Saurabh Lavania and DK Uphadhyaya had, on December 27, directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct elections on an immediate basis without OBC reservation, since the concerned State notification failed to fulfil the triple test formula laid down by the Supreme Court.The judges had, however, directed the authorities to include reservation for women as per the Constitution.The High Court had quashed a government notification dated December 5, issued by the Department of Urban Development, noting that the government intended to conduct local body elections after reserving four mayor seats in the State for OBCs.The Court had observed that the State has not set up a dedicated Commission for conducting an empirical study into the nature and implications of backwardness for the purposes of providing reservation to OBCs in the local self-government institutions, and thereby has not made necessary changes to the statutory prescriptions.It had also quashed a government order dated December 12 which provides for operation of bank accounts of municipalities under joint signatures of Executive Officers and the Senior Most Officers in the Uttar Pradesh Palika Centralized Service (Accounts Cadre).After the verdict, the State had appointed a five-member commission for OBC reservation in urban local body elections..During today's hearing before the apex court, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta appearing for the State said that the commission may be directed to complete its exercise in three months.To this the CJI replied, "But can there be a constitutional vacuum for 3 months? Again, holding polls without OBCs will not be correct since a large part will go unrepresented. Cannot the commission form a preliminary report? Because you know about Article 243(u)." The said Article provides for the tenure of municipality members. The SG then pointed out that the earliest a tenure would get over was only on January 31. The Bench, wondering how fast the exercise could be completed, then said that it has to be seen which terms have already expired. .Advocates Bansuri Swaraj, Syed Ahmed Saud, Sanjay Kumar, Rahul Yadav, Aviral Kashyap and Mona K Rajvanshi appeared on caveat.[Read order]