The Odisha High Court on Tuesday granted an interim stay on the operation of a notification issued by the State Government fixing reservation for the top posts of urban local bodies (UlBs).
The Director of Municipalities on February 21 this year had come out with a notification fixing reservation criteria for the posts of chairman in about 97 Notified Area Councils (NACs) and Municipalities of the State on the basis of 2001 census.
Out of the 97 bodies, posts of only 28 are unreserved while the remaining posts are reserved for SC, ST, OBC and women.Challenging the notification, one Pramod Kumar Pradhan of Titilagarh had moved the HC through his advocate Ashis Kumar Mishra questioning while the census report of 2011 was already available, why the Govt is insisting on fixing reservation on the basis of 2001 census.
Granting an interim stay on the operation of the notification, a Division bench of Chief Justice C Nagappan and Justice Indrajit Mohanti issued notices to the Government asking the Secretary of the Urban Development Dept to file counters to the petition within four weeks, informed the counsel for the petitioner. The petition says that the Census India in its website has indicated that the urban population in Odisha has registered an increase of 20 % in 2011. “Against such a background, the reservation criteria fixed on the basis of the 2001 census would not be the same for the 2011 census,” the petition said.