Patna41 min agoWriter: Manish Mishra
Municipal elections in Bihar have been cancelled. The High Court quashed it 6 days before the election. In fact, during the hearing, when the court asked for evidence on the plea of following the rules of reservation, the government showed an article printed in the newspaper. The government has failed the triple test. She wanted to hold civic elections without giving tests.
The matter went to the Supreme Court and then the Patna High Court quashed the election. During the hearing, the court had asked the government just one question, in which the state government had asked for proof of triple test, but the Bihar government, which talked about reservation, showed the cutting of a newspaper as evidence. Know the full story behind the cancellation of civic elections….
Government could not conduct triple test in 12 years
In 2010, there was a K Krishnamurthy case challenge regarding reservation in elections. The case was challenged on the ground that without conducting a survey, the government was giving reservation in elections to create a vote bank in the entire country. In this case, the decision came by triple test. After the Supreme Court’s decision, the triple test was considered a major parameter for reservation in elections.
Even after the year 2010, the Supreme Court has given several judgments related to this, in which the triple test was said to be completely effective for reservation. Under the politics in the country, the triple test was ignored by the government in the whole country, the Bihar government also fixed the reservation in the body elections without the triple test. Due to this arbitrariness of the government, the Patna High Court canceled the election.
Know what is the triple test formula
Senior advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam, one of the advocates who raised the issue of Petitioner in Patna High Court in canceling the Bihar civic elections, said that the system of triple test made by the Supreme Court regarding reservation in elections, the government’s arbitrariness is going on. has been Against this arbitrariness of the government, a petition was filed from the Supreme Court to the Patna High Court.
According to Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam, the decision of the Constitution Bench came in 2010, but even today the government is doing arbitrariness in the matter of reservation. This is against the constitution and other decisions. By creating a dedicated commission for the triple test, collecting data from the respective castes, the second is to find out if the number of backwards in the total population of a municipality, what percentage it is, of the total population. After this, whether they are represented in proportion to the total population or not.
After this, the third test is to be done that in any case the upper ceiling will not exceed 50 percent. Reservation has to be given in the rest only. In 12 years, under 15 (4) and 16 (4), the government worked to give 20 percent reservation in panchayat and civic elections. A petition was filed against the State Government and the State Election Commission which was providing the facility of reservation.
Know what the government had argued
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam says that the government had a very long argument. The state government had started the argument with the Kaka Kalelkar report. Along with this, arguments were also made for Mungeri Lal Commission and Backward Commission and EBC Commission. On the basis of this argument, the government said that it has been conducting the triple test for a long time.
The government said that the total population of backwards and those politically backward among them have been put in EBC. Along with this, those who had political representation have been kept in OBC. On the basis of similar arguments, the government talked about conducting a triple test in Patna High Court.
When the court asked for the data, the newspaper clippings appeared
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam told that in the midst of the ongoing hearing regarding reservation in elections, when the government asked for data on the basis of reservation according to the triple test, then a clipping of news published by the government in an English newspaper was shown. On this, the court also reprimanded and said that no such survey related to reservation has been done in whatever commission has been made so far, in which the triple test has been completed.
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam says that there was only one question of the court in this whole matter and the government had no answer to it. The State Election Commission did not have a reply with the government. The court reprimanded the Election Commission as to why the Supreme Court order was not followed.
Those who could not contest elections became plaintiffs
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam says that the government did not conduct the triple test. Due to this, hundreds of people got out of the fight in the civic elections even after the preparations for the elections. Such people had filed a petition against the government and the Election Commission. The advocate says that the matter had gone to the Supreme Court earlier and from there the guidelines came to the High Court.
After which the Patna High Court heard the matter and canceled the election due to lack of triple test. According to Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam, a large number of people had filed their petition in this petition, in which the number of advocates of the petitions during the hearing was also high, who were engaged to present their point of view on behalf of the petitioners.
Decision came after 16 hours of brainstorming
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar Mangalam told that the decision in this matter has come very soon as the preparation for the election was completed and the notification was also issued. In this, one of the petitioners went to the Supreme Court while the other had filed a petition in the Patna High Court.
The first hearing in this serious matter was held on 2 September 2022. After this, the judges brainstormed for about 16 hours for the decision on 22, 28 and 29 September. Then on October 4, the decision was taken in which the Patna High Court tightened the noose on the arbitrariness of the government in Bihar like in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Now the government has only two options, either it will have to conduct a triple test, which is not possible in such a short time or else elections will have to be conducted by normalizing the seats of reservation.
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