SC denies 10 castes permission to stand from UP reserved seats

New Delhi, Mar 13 (UNI) The Supreme Court today declined permission to ten castes and seven sub-castes, which were separated from the Scheduled Castes (SC) category and included in Scheduled Tribes (ST) category to contest the elections from the seats reserved for the SC in Uttar Pradesh.

A bench comprising Justices C K Thakker and V S Sirpurkar declined the interim relief to the petitioners Aadivasi Girivasi Samiti Duddhi and former MLA Vijay Singh Gond whose caste were put in the ST category in 2003 at their own insistance.

The court, however, admitted the petition and directed the Attorney General to give his opinion on the issue and also assist the court while disposing of the matter.

The petitioners were included in SC category in 2001 census and in 2002 they made a demand for being treated as STs which was admitted by the state government. In 2003, the Centre got the Act passed in Parliament.

The petitioners have sought directions to the Election Commission of India to treat them as SC category candidates for the purpose of contesting elections till the next national census is conducted in 2011.

The dilemma surrounding the petitioners is that now they can neither contest the elections as SC candidates nor as ST candidates since the data regarding their percentage of population in the state is not available.

Earlier, the Centre in its counter affidavit had taken the stand that it had no objection if the petitioners are allowed to contest as SC candidates. The court, however, did not agree with its stand.

With today's order, those belonging to these castes and sub-castes can only contest the coming assembly elections in the state as general category candidates.

UNI