Lucknow sources have stated that the Allahabad High Court today directed the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government to file their response on a petition seeking disqualification of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya for not vacating their parliamentary posts.
Meanwhile the Lucknow bench of the high court had earlier issued a notice to the Attorney General, the country's top law officer, following which Additional Solicitor General Ashok Mehta and UP Advocate General Raghvendra Singh appeared in the court today.
Moreover the court had asked them to file a counter-affidavit so that the
matter could be decided and a division bench comprising Justices Sudhir Agrawal
and Virendra Kumar passed the order on the petition filed by Sanjai Sharma. The
petitioner cited the Constitution to say that a parliamentarian cannot become a
minister in the state government.
He demanded that the appointment of Mr. Adityanath as chief minister and Mr. Maurya as deputy chief minister be set aside and their parliamentary seats declared vacant. While Mr. Adityanath is a member of the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur, Mr. Maurya represents Phulpur in the Lower House of Parliament and the petitioner also challenged the constitutionality of section 3(A) of the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act.
