Summary:
Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Wednesday directed Center and state governments to file response to a petition seeking disqualification of chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on the respective posts. The petition also seeks the parliamentary seats of Yogi and Keshav be declared vacant.The petitioner further challenges constitutionality of section 3(A) of the Prevention of Disqualification Act . Since the constitutionality of a Central act cannot be tested without hearing the Attorney General, the court issued him notice.On the last date, the court had issued notice to Attorney General of India. On Wednesday, when additional solicitor general Ashok Mehta and advocate general Raghvendra Singh appeared, the court asked them to file counter affidavits in four weeks so that the issue could be decided finally. The court set the matter for next hearing after six weeks.A division bench comprising justice Sudhir Agrawal and justice Virendra Kumar (II) passed the above order on the public interest litigation petition filed by Sanjai Sharma, who pleaded that a parliamentarian cannot not become minister of a state government as it is violation of article 101(2) of the Constitution and as such appointment of Yogi as CM and Keshav as deputy CM should be set aside, for both are still continuing as parliamentarians..