The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Tuesday directed the chief election commissioner, the Centre and the UP govt to file their counter affidavits within four weeks on a petition seeking a complete ban on caste-based rallies in Uttar Pradesh. The court granted two weeks’ time to the petitioner for filing a rejoinder affidavit.

The court passed the order on an old PIL petition filed by one Motilal Yadav in 2013 after reopening it.