The Supreme Court declined to halt the ongoing electoral process for the Rajya Sabha elections from Madhya Pradesh. A bench led by justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Atul S Chandurkar refused to pass any interim order stopping the announcement of the election result, noting that the law laid down by the apex court in ‘ECI vs Ashok Kumar (2000)’ was clear that courts must ordinarily not interfere once the electoral process has started.
The Supreme Court announced the decision even as it agreed to hear Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan’s plea challenging the rejection of her Rajya Sabha nomination papers on Friday. “Sorry, we cannot. We are posting it tomorrow, subject to clearance of all defects,” the bench told senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is representing Natarajan, while seeking an immediate interim order preventing authorities from announcing the result.
The top court’s order came following concerns raised by Congress that 11th June was the final date for withdrawal of nominations from the upper house. It contended that with Natarajan’s candidature being rejected, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates could be declared elected unopposed after the withdrawal deadline had expired.
Calling for swift intervention, Singhvi told the SC that the case involved a serious legal matter regarding disclosure norms under Section 33A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which deals with the voters’ right to know any candidate’s criminal antecedents who is contesting elections.
“My nomination has been rejected even though there is no cognisance taken by the court. How can they do this?” Singhvi said, while arguing that the alleged criminal proceedings cited to reject Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination papers had not reached the stage where a court had acknowledged the complaint.
“Today is the last day of withdrawal. They are technically entitled to declare the result after the deadline to withdraw nomination ends later today because it would be unopposed,” Singhvi submitted, urging the court to direct the ECI authorities not to announce the result till the matter was heard.
