Holding that ‘divinity’ is not an overtly religious term and there cannot be a bar on using it in the name of a political party, the Madras High Court has directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to register a party, named Desiya Deiveega Murpokku Kazhagam (DDMK), meaning ‘national divine progressive body.’
Justice Anita Sumanth allowed a writ petition, pending in the court for the last seven years, and set aside an order passed by the ECI on May 13, 2016, refusing to register the party on the grounds that its name contained a word with a religious connotation. The judge directed the ECI to accept the name within four weeks.
Though the term ‘Deiveega’ could also mean ‘Godliness’, the judge said the exact intended meaning of the term in the name of a political party must be construed in the context of the words that precede and succeed it. In the present case, the words ‘national’ and ‘progressive’ too had been used by the petitioner party.
“After all, patriotism could well be the highest form of religion. Indian culture and ethos revere the country placing her on an exalted pedestal as mother India. The use of the word ‘Deiveega’ in the name of the petitioner thus hardly contains or indicates any religious connotation, stricto senso, and must be understood only in this context,” she wrote.
Tracing the history of the issue, Justice Sumanth said, Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act of 1951 does not specify any detailed parameters with respect to the names to be used by political parties except for expecting them to be aligned with the Constitutional principles of socialism, secularism and democracy.
In 2004, a case was filed against the use of religious phrases in the names of political parties. Though that case was dismissed on technical grounds, it became a trigger for the ECI to take a policy decision in 2005 that it shall not register political parties with names that contained contained words that had religious connotations.
The ECI created a distinction between legacy names (names of political parties registered prior to 2005) and those registered post 2005 when the policy decision came to be implemented. The distinction was justified on the ground that changing legacy names might cause confusion among the electorate.
Thereafter, the ECI issued a communication on January 24, 2017 inviting the attention of all Chief Electoral Officers in the States and Union Territories to the 2005 guidelines for their attention and scrupulous compliance. Though the guidelines had no direct statutory backing, the commission did have the authority to issue them, the judge said.
Citing several Supreme Court rulings on the ECI’s authority, Justice Sumanth wrote: “I have no doubt that the power of ECI to issue orders in the nature of executive instructions is wide and expansive in matters concerning regulation of elections and therefore the preliminary objection raised in this writ petition is answered in favour of the commission.”
However, after dealing with the facts of the case on hand, the judge agreed with the petitioner’s counsel G. Ethirajulu that the ECI was not right in concluding that the term ‘divinity’ had a religious connotation.
