New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday, June 12, told Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan that once a nomination is rejected by the returning officer, the remedy lies with the Election Commission (EC) and not the court, as it heard her challenge to the rejection of her Rajya Sabha nomination papers.
A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Atul S Chandurkar said, “However erroneous the decision may be, once a nomination is rejected, the remedy ordinarily lies elsewhere. Is there any judgment of this Court where we have interfered at that stage?” The bench also asked Natarajan to cite any precedent where the court had intervened at that stage.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Natarajan, argued that a candidate is required to disclose only criminal cases carrying a minimum sentence of two years, and that in her case only a summons had been issued. He said the returning officer had wrongly rejected her nomination for the Rajya Sabha poll in Madhya Pradesh, citing alleged non-disclosure of a case under the Representation of People Act.
The rejection was triggered by a complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Mahesh Kewat, alleging that Natarajan had not mentioned in her Form 26 affidavit a case registered against her in Telangana. Returning officer Arvind Kumar Sharma subsequently held that the affidavit was incomplete.
No column to disclose: Meenakshi Natrajan
Natarajan told reporters that Form 26 had no column to disclose private complaints and that she had written “Not Applicable” since the matter involved only a legal notice that the court had not yet taken cognisance of. “If there was a column for it, I would have given the details,” she said.
The Congress accused the BJP and the Election Commission of being “partners in crime” in what it called an instance of “seat chori,” alleging that the rejection was based on “flawed and unreasonable logic.” The party said the BJP, which was short of the numbers needed to win a third Rajya Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, had resorted to “underhand tricks” after failing to engineer defections.
On Thursday, June 11, the returning officer declared three BJP candidates – Tarun Chugh, Rajneesh Agarwal and Mahesh Kewat – elected unopposed from the state.
(With inputs from PTI)
