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Court held that the matter pertained to the political affiliation of the legislators and it could not be decided within the purview of writ jurisdiction
The Madras High Court on Tuesday disposed of two PILs filed seeking direction to nullify the election of four Members of Parliament (MPs) and eight Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) who had allegedly contested on reserved symbols affiliated with different political parties during the 2019 general election and the 2021 Assembly election, respectively.
The PILs were filed by Advocate M.L. Ravi of the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi in 2019 and 2021.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy observed that the contentious matters regarding the political affiliation of the legislators could not be decided within the purview of writ jurisdiction.
The petitioner's counsel, had earlier submitted that MPs T.R. Paarivendhar, D. Ravikumar, A. Ganeshamurthi, and A.K.P. Chinnaraj, representing different constituencies, belonged to distinct parties. However, they had all contested using the 'rising sun' symbol of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, despite their affiliations with the Indiya Jananayaga Katchi, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and Kongu Makkal Desiya Katchi, respectively.
The counsel argued that similarly, MLAs T. Sadhan Thirumalai Kumar, M. Boominathan, K. Chinnappa, A.R.R. Raghuraman, M.H. Jawahirullah, E.R. Eswaran, T. Velmurugan, and M. Jagan Moorthy had contested using symbols associated with either the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam despite belonging to different parties.
Some of the legislators’ counsel, refuted the claims, asserting that their clients contested the elections only after becoming members of recognized political parties, and the reserved symbols were allotted in accordance with the authorization from the respective parties.
Further, the counsel representing the Election Commission of India (ECI) submitted that Returning Officers perform quasi-judicial act by accepting the submitted documents by a candidate for nomination, therefore, any discrepancies in such documents could only be challenged through an election petition, not a writ petition, as per Article 329(b) of the Constitution.
The division bench concurred with the submissions and held that the plea to declare the election of the 12 legislators null and void could not be decided within the ambit of writ jurisdiction.
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[Inputs: The Hindu]
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