Allahabad: The Allahabad High Court today allowed an application seeking permission to challenge the Uttar Pradesh government’s refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a decade-old communal riots case.

A division bench comprising justices Krishna Murari and Akhilesh Chandra Sharma allowed the amendment application of Parvez Parwaz and Asad Hayat, who had moved the court seeking a CBI inquiry into the Gorakhpur communal riots of 2007.

The court fixed August 9 as the next date of hearing, while directing the state government to file its counter-affidavit on the plea.

According to the petitioners’ counsel, S.F.A Naqvi, “We had submitted that we should be allowed to challenge the government’s decision to refuse sanction since one of the accused in the case is heading the state government.” Parwaz is also the complainant in the FIR lodged in connection with the Gorakhpur riots, while Hayat is one of the witnesses in the case.

Besides Yogi, the then Gorakhpur Mayor Anju Chaudhary and local MLA Radha Mohan Das Agrawal have also been named as accused in the case.