Supreme Court lets Mayawati rename Amethi

The apex court on Wednesday awarded a “political victory” to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati by vacating the Allahabad High Court’s stay order on rechristening Amethi city and declaration as Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar district.

Mayawati was allowed to change the name of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi?s Lok Sabha constituency on grounds that a bench of the Allahabad High Court had already dismissed a petition seeking stay on Amethi’s renaming and declaration as a district on Aug 11.

However, following the declaration, the decision to rename the district after the erstwhile ruler of Kolhapur and Bahujan Samaj Party icon Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj was stayed by the high court on Aug 18.

Mayawati?s government had moved to the Supreme Court against the second interim order of the high court Bench passed on the petition filed by three individuals against the rechristening.

The Supreme Court Justices R V Raveendran and H L Gokhale said that the high court bench which passed the interim order on August 18 should have considered the final judgement of August 11.

The formation of the district had been first ordered in 2003 by Mayawati government but was scrapped the same year when her political opponent Mulayam Singh Yadav came to power.