The Chairman of the five-member Uttar Pradesh Local Bodies Dedicated Backward Classes Commission, Justice (Retired) Ram Avtar Singh said the commission would submit its report to the state government within next three months and the follow-up work would be completed in another three months.
The tenure of the commission will be six months. The government had constituted the commission earlier this week on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference after the first meeting of the commission here on Saturday, Justice (Retired) Ram Avtar Singh said, “The commission would do its best to complete the work in the next three months and submit the report to the state government and the follow-up work will be taken up in next three months.”
Of the five members of the commission four were present in the meeting while one member joined the meeting through virtual mode.
Justice (Retired) Singh said the commission would visit each of the 75 districts of the state and with the assistance of the district administration conduct the survey for working out the population of the OBCs in urban areas of the state. He said the commission would also meet the elected people’s representatives in districts and would ask them to file their written complaints.
Asked about the reasons for the quashing of reservation for OBCs by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, Justice (Retd) Singh said he was yet to go through the High Court judgement.
Asked whether the commission would fix the responsibility of the officers for the lapses in working out the reservation for the OBCs, Justice (Retd) Singh said this was not the brief of the commission.
On the task before the commission, Justice (Retd) Singh said, “It’s a new and challenging task with not many precedents,”
He, however, said that such commissions were set up in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and the UP commission would look into the work done by other states.
The UP government has constituted the five-member Uttar Pradesh Local bodies Dedicated Backward Classes Commission headed by Justice (Retd) Ram Avtar Singh. The other members are Chob Singh Verma (retired IAS officer) Mahendra Kumar (retired IAS officer), Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma and Brijesh Kumar Soni, both retired higher judicial services officers.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court in its judgement on Tuesday had directed the UP government to hold the urban local bodies’ elections at the earliest without any reservation for the OBCs. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said on Tuesday that the state government would constitute a dedicated survey commission to ensure that the benefits of reservation were provided to the OBCs on the basis of triple-test guidelines set by the Supreme Court.
The UP government has also challenged the High Court order in the Supreme Court. The High Court, in its order, had directed the UP government to immediately notify the urban local bodies’ elections. The high court said, “We understand that the collection and collation of material by dedicated commission is a humongous and time taking task, however the formation of the elected municipal bodies through election cannot be delayed for the reason of constitutional mandate in Article 243U of the Constitution of India which mandates that the election to constitute a municipality shall be completed before the expiry of its term.