India News | HC Seeks State Reply on Plea Against Notification Superseding Village Heads' Power

Allahabad, Jan 19 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday sought the Uttar Pradesh government's stand on a plea challenging its notification appointing assistant development officers as panchayat administrators within their bocks after the expiry of the civic bodies' term on December 24 last year.

A bench of Justice Rajiv Joshi sought the government's stand within two weeks on a plea by two village panchayat heads (gram pradhans) of Bulandshahr district.

Uttar Pradesh has a total of 58,758 gram panchayats and as many panchayat heads.

As per the notification, the term of all these panchayats, barring 88 of Gautam Budh Nagar and 10 of Gonda districts, where panchayat elections were held late, expired on the night intervening December 25 and 26.

The notification had also asked the state's district administrations to appoint assistant development officers of various blocks as gram panchayats administrators within their blocks, arming them with the powers of village heads and panchayat committees within their blocks.

Appearing for petitioners, advocate Mahesh Sharma submitted before the court that by the December 24 notification stripped all gram pradhans of their powers while delegating their work to blocks assistant development officers.

He also argued that the notification to seize the village heads' power was issued without notifying election which is against the provisions of the UP Panchayat Raj Act.

After hearing counsel for petitioners, the court asked the government counsel to file a reply within two weeks and ordered the listing of the matter after that.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)