LUCKNOW, July 8 -- The Uttar Pradesh government is all set to appoint sitting zila panchayat chairpersons and kshetra panchayat (block) chiefs as administrators for six months after the expiry of their five-year tenure, replicating the model it recently adopted for village pradhans in May. This will effectively allow 75 zila panchayat heads and over 800 block chiefs to continue in their office beyond their five-year term fixed in the Constitution. The five-year term of zila panchayats ends on July 11 while that of kshetra panchayats on July 19. Confirming the move, panchayati raj minister Om Prakash Rajbhar told Hindustan Times that a proposal for extending the five-year term of zila panchayat and kshetra panchayat chiefs by appointing them administrators, as was done in the case of village panchayats, has already been sent to the chief minister. "A GO in this regard will be issued well in time," he said. The decision, like in case of pradhans, marks a departure from the past past practice when government functionaries were appointed administrators in place of elected panchayat heads if the government was, for any 'unavoidable' circumstances, was not able to conduct polls before expiry of their five-year term. "In the past, district magistrates were appointed administrators in place of zila panchayat chiefs and sub-divisional magistrates in place of block heads while block-level functionaries took charge of village panchayats," a panchayat raj department official said. The latest move comes even as the government's earlier decision to extend village pradhans' tenure beyond five years in May has come under scrutiny. In its order last week, the Allahabad high court took serious exception to appointing village pradhans administrators instead of holding fresh rural elections before completion of their five-year term. The matter related to village pradhans is scheduled to come up for hearing in the high court on July 13. The government, according to officials aware of the matter, is prepared to defend its decision before the court. Officials said the government was under pressure from zila panchayat heads and block chiefs to allow them to continue during the interim period instead of handing over the charge to bureaucrats exactly as it did in case of village pradhans. "Adopting a different approach to higher tiers of the three-tier panchayati raj system could have weakened the government's stand particularly when the extension grated to around 57,000 village pradhans is already under challenge before the high court," officials pointed out. Under Article 243E of the Constitution, every panchayat enjoys a fixed five-year term and fresh elections are required to be completed before the expiry of its tenure or within six months in the event of its premature dissolution. Officials said the state government proposes to invoke provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Kshetra Panchayats and Zila Panchayats Act, 1961, under which administrators can be appointed to discharge the functions of the local body during the interregnum. The provisions are silent on as to who will be appointed administrators and whether the administrators can be reappointed beyond six-months. While panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh have been postponed in the past, officials said such delays generally did not exceed six months. This time, however, the elections could be delayed further as the government is understood to be planning to hold them after the 2027 assembly elections....