Allahabad HC issues fresh notices to political parties on plea seeking complete ban on caste-based rallies in UP

The Allahabad High Court recently issued fresh notices to the Chief Election Commissioner of India and the four major political parties in Uttar Pradesh in a plea seeking a complete ban on caste-based rallies in the state.

The bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Jaspreet Singh passed the order in the Public Interest Litigation that was filed by Advocate Moti Lal Yadav in 2013. The bench noted that the paper book showed that no one had appeared for respondents in the matter.

Yadav had filed the PIL in 2013 being aggrieved by the caste-based rallies organized by the respondent political parties then.

He had stated that the Election Commission of India, which has been empowered and assigned the duty of framing rules in order to ensure fair elections, had failed to carry out the mandate of law, therefore, it may be directed to frame rules for controlling the political parties against all the acts of commission or omission undertaken to influence the voters on the basis of caste and religion.

A division bench of the high court, in July 2013, had passed an interim order in the PIL wherein it had issued notice to the CEC, BJP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, and Congress to submit their response while directing them to not hold any caste-based rallies with political motives throughout the State of U.P. till the next date of hearing in the matter.

However, no response has been filed by the respondents yet. Therefore, the court issued fresh notices to them and fixed December 15, 2022 as the next date of hearing.

In the 2013 order, the division bench of Justice Uma Nath Singh and Justice Mahendra Dayal had stated, "It is a historical fact that the caste system has existed across the religions and throughout the world but it has always introduced the element of schism, and the evils of discrimination apart from inciting group violence in the society".

The division bench had noted that in India "since the traditional social set up was caste-based, the political parties found it profitable to occupy a ready-made political base by identifying themselves with one caste or another while ignoring their political ideologies and the manifestos which served as the basis of their recognition under the law".

The bench had stressed, "...unrestricted freedom to hold caste-based rallies, which is to the total disliking and beyond the comprehension of the modern generation and also contrary to the public interest, cannot be justified".

Therefore, while stating that there was no direct and specific prayer in the PIL, the division bench had exercised the powers under Article 226 in terms of the last general prayer and had put an interim ban on organizing caste-based rallies in Uttar Pradesh.

Case Title: Moti Lal Yadav v. Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India and others