The Madras High Court has criticised the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) for having cancelled elections for all wards in Kadambur Town Panchayat of Thoothukudi district just because the nominations of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party candidates had been rejected in three wards.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy wrote: “The election commission is not right in espousing the cause of a section of people or any political party including the ruling political party which suddenly wanted to put up candidates in respect of the unopposed wards also.”
The judges went on to state: “In our view, to help the persons/political parties interested to put up new candidates in these wards, the power of cancellation is exercised. Thus, it virtually amounts to a colourable exercise to extend the time limit for filing nominations after the expiry of the schedule.”
The observations were made while allowing writ petitions filed by three independent candidates P. Nagaraja, N. Rajeswari and V. Sivakumar who ought to have been declared as elected unopposed in ward numbers 1, 2 and 11 since the nominations of their rival DMK candidates were rejected on the day of scrutiny.
Petitioners’ counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by K.R. Laxman, pointed out to the court that the three DMK candidates were not present on the day of scrutiny of nominations on February 5 but the individuals who had reportedly proposed their names appeared before the Returning Officer and denied having proposed those names.
However, on February 7, the TNSEC Secretary passed an order cancelling the elections to all wards in Kadambur Town Panchayat and the only reason cited for such cancellation was that the Returning Officer as well as the Assistant Returning Officer left their offices early on the day of scrutiny without sending reports to the District Election Officer.
Subsequently, during the course of hearing of the present writ petitions challenging the cancellation order, the TNSEC came up with new reasons. Not willing to accept those reasons, the first Division Bench said, the reason cited in the cancellation order was flimsy and frivolous on the face of it and also clearly vexatious.
“There is no provision in the rules for the Election Commission to enable any aggrieved person to file nomination beyond the time limit prescribed in the notification which sacrosanct and the schedule is inviolable. What the Election Commission cannot do directly, it cannot do indirectly by virtue of canceling the election,” the Bench observed.
The judges quashed the cancellation order and ordered that the writ petitioners must be treated as unopposed and declared elected in the three wards. However, with respect to the other wards in the town panchayat, the TNSEC could conduct fresh elections and complete the process within two months, they said.
