The raging political battle between the Utter Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Congress on creation of a new district out of Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi parliamentary constituency on Thursday reached the Supreme Court with the state government seeking top court’s intervention in the Allahabad high court order staying the notification on formation of the new district.
UP government counsel and Mayawati’s trusted aide and senior advocate Satish Mishra made a special mention of the petition before a bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and H.L. Gokhale with a plea to vacate the interim stay order of Lucknow bench of the HC granted on August 18.
While admitting the state government’s petition, the apex court posted the matter to September 1 but refused to pass any interim order for vacating the stay without detailed hearing.
The state government in its special leave petition submitted that the notification of July 1 for formation of new district of Chhattarparti Sahuji Maharaj Nagar was not a new order but only restoration of an earlier notification of May 21, 2003, which was superseded by the successive government, led by Samajwadi Party.
In fact, the creation of the new district was a part of the state government’s the policy guidelines laid down in 1992, for formation of new districts based on the census data, the Mayawati government said.
It questioned the intervention of the HC in the matter despite the fact that a three-judge bench of the HC in its 1999 judgement had approved the government’s policy guidelines with a reasoned order on formation of the new districts.
The HC had clearly laid down that it would not be open to rake up the issue of creation of new districts again and again by way of filing writ petitions on almost the same grounds, which had been adjudicated.