The Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to declare as null and void the election of four MPs and eight MLAs, who had contested on reserved symbols belonging to other political parties in the 2019 general election and the 2021 Assembly election, respectively.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy disposed of two public interest litigation petitions filed by advocate M.L. Ravi of the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi in 2019 and 2021, after observing that disputed questions of fact, with respect to the party to which the legislators belonged, could not be decided in writ jurisdiction.
Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel, T. Sivagnanasambandan, claimed that the MPs, T.R. Paarivendhar (representing Perambalur constituency), D. Ravikumar (Villupuram), A. Ganeshamurthi (Erode) and A.K.P. Chinnaraj (Namakkal), belonged to the Indiya Jananayaga Katchi, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Kongu Makkal Desiya Katchi, respectively. However, all four had contested on the ‘rising sun’ symbol of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, he said.
The counsel claimed 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 belonged to different parties, but had contested on either the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s ‘rising sun’ symbol or the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s ‘two leaves’ symbol.
Denying the allegation, advocates Richardson Wilson and S. Manuraj, representing some of the legislators, said that their clients had contested the elections only after becoming members of the recognised political parties on whose reserved symbols the elections were fought. The counsel pointed out that a reserved symbol would be allotted only to candidates authorised by the party concerned.
On his part, advocate Niranjan Rajagopalan, representing the Election Commission of India, said that the Returning Officers perform a quasi judicial act of accepting the nomination of a candidate on the basis of the papers filed before him/her, and if there are any discrepancies in those documents, the election of such a candidate could be challenged only by way of an election petition and not a writ petition.
Since these issues involved disputed questions of fact, they could be resolved only by marshalling evidence and conducting a trial. Further, Article 329(b) of the Constitution clearly states that no election to Parliament or a State legislature could be called into question except by way of an election petition presented to such authority and in such manner as may be provided for under any law, he said.
Accepting his submissions, the Bench held that the PIL petitioner’s plea to declare the election of the 12 legislators null and void could not be granted in writ jurisdiction.
