HC reserves order on jumbo draping

Allahabad High Court on Monday reserved the judgement on the petition challenging the Election Commission order to cover the statues of elephants and Chief Minister Mayawati.

The Allahabad High Court on Monday reserved the judgement on the petition challenging the Election Commission order to cover the statues of elephants and Chief Minister Mayawati.

The petition had challenged that the covering of the elephants statues saying the pachyderms are worshipped as Lord Ganesha by the Hindus and covering it amounted to violation of freedom to practice ones religion.

The matter came up for hearing before the division bench of Justices Amar Saran and Ramesh Sinha. Both the parties forwarded their arguments following which the court reserved its judgement, said Anil Kumar Singh,the counsel for petitioner,Dheeraj Pratap Singh.

My argument before the court was on the same lines that it was a religious issue. The petitioner does not have any objection to any persons statue being covered, he added. Senior government counsel Ravi Kant,however,argued that the petitioner was trying to gain publicity by raising the issue.

Last week,the petition had been rejected by the bench comprising Chief Justice S R Alam and Justice R V Singh on technical grounds. The bench,however,had said the petitioner was free to file a fresh petition after rectifying the mistake. The petition was filed again on last Friday. It was heard by a different bench on Monday since the chief justice was out of station.

The Election Commission had ordered covering of elephant and Mayawatis statues in the state on January 8,saying these may influence the voters.

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