Lucknow, July 11 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has raised several important constitutional questions over the appointment of village heads as administrators after the expiry of the tenures of gram panchayats and asked the state government to clearly explain the legal basis for this system. The court also stated that the validity of Section 12(3-A) of the Uttar Pradesh Panchayati Raj Act needed to be considered.

Hearing the petitions filed by Sanjay Kumar Sharma and others, a division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla on Friday said that it is worth considering whether appointing the village head as administrator indirectly extends the tenure of the panchayat and whether this affects the constitution...