The Allahabad high court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to complete all necessary formalities for holding elections to urban local bodies and issue a notification in this regard by December 19.

A division bench comprising justice Devi Prasad Singh and justice S C Chaurasia directed the government to "complete all necessary formalities by round the clock working within a period of ten days or maximum by December 18".

"Let a notification be issued on or before December 19, 2011 and submit a compliance report to the court," the court said.

The court passed the 101-page order on the judgement reserved by it on December 2, while hearing seven writ petitions challenging appointment of administrators in the urban local bodies.

On December 2, the government had told the court it shall notify the elections to the urban local bodies immediately after two months. Additional advocate general Jaideep Narain Mathur had informed the court that state will wait for a week to obtain data as per Census of 2011, failing which, it will proceed with the 2001 Census data.

The five-year tenure of urban local bodies in the state had expired on November 15 following which the state government had issued an order to appoint administrators on November 13 after it failed to issue the poll notification due to unavailability of Census 2011 data.

The court directed the chief secretary and principal secretary Nagar Vikas, all DMs of UP and other authorities to make necessary preparations in effective consultation with the state election commission to hold elections on issuance of appropriate notification and enable the state election commission to hold elections.

The court directed principal secretary Nagar Vikas that he shall communicate the order to all DMs by fax and by other means immediately.

Earlier, last week the government had given an undertaking in the court that it shall notify the elections to the urban local bodies immediately after two months.

Additional advocate general Jaideep Narain Mathur had stated before the court during the hearing on writ petitions challenging the process of appointing administrators in the urban local bodies in the state whose tenure had expired on November 15 and the GO appointing administrators was issued on November 13 which was challenged.

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