PIL seeking ban of caste rallies in Uttar Pradesh; High seeks seeks govt's reply

A bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Subhash Vidyarti while hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) seeking ban on caste rallies in the State ordered the Central and State governments to file its counter affidavits in 4 weeks.

Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the High Court on Tuesday which heard a public interest litigation demanding a ban on caste rallies in Uttar Pradesh gave the governments in the State and the Centre to file their respective counters to the prayer within 4 weeks time. The notice was served on the Election Commission as well.

The present petition follows the previous orders of the HC which banned the caste based rallies in the State and sought directed the state, and the Centre and the EC to come up with the guidelines against such caste based rallies. The present litigation charged that neither of the parties have prepared guidelines as directed.

The order was passed by the division bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Subhash Vidyarti while hearing the PIL filed in the year 2013 by local advocate Motilal Yadav. According to the petitioner, in its earlier order, the court had ordered the Central and State Governments, including the Election Commission, to prepare guidelines against caste rallies.

He said that in its latest order, the court has asked to file a counter affidavit regarding the compliance of it's earlier order. The court had on Nov. 11, 2022 ordered to issue new notices to the four major parties of the state, BJP, Congress, SP and BSP in this matter.

However, none appeared on behalf of the parties during the hearing. In the year 2013 also, notices were issued to the said political parties in this regard. It is noteworthy that in the said PIL, a demand has been made to ban caste rallies in the state. After hearing the petition, on July 11, 2013, the court had banned caste-based rallies by political parties in the state.

While passing the interim order, the court had said that the caste system divides the society. The court further said that caste rallies give rise to discrimination. The court had also said that allowing caste-based rallies is a violation of the spirit of the constitution, fundamental rights and obligations.