Allahabad High court issues notice over Yogi, Maurya LS posts

Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Wednesday directed the Central and state governments to file their responses on a petition seeking disqualification of chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya for not vacating their parliamentary posts.

The Lucknow bench of the high court had earlier issued a notice to the attorney-general, following which additional solicitor general Ashok Mehta and UP advocate general Raghvendra Singh appeared in the court on Wednesday.

A division bench, comprising Justices Sudhir Agrawal and Virendra Kumar, passed the order on the  petition filed by Sanjay Sharma.

The court asked them to file a counter-affidavit so that the matter could be decided upon soon. The petitioner cited the Constitution to say that a parliamentarian could not become a minister in the state government.

He demanded that the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister and Maurya as deputy chief minister be set aside and their parliamentary seats declared vacant.

While Yogi Adityanath is a member of the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur, Mr Maurya represents Phulpur in the Lok Sabha.

The petitioner also challenged the constitutionality of section 3(A) of the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act.

Since the constitutionality of a central Act cannot be tested without hearing the attorney-general, the court issued him a notice on the matter.