M A I N   N E W S

SC cautions on poll pleas

New Delhi, November 17
To stop corrupt practices in poll, the Supreme Court has ruled that an election petition by a defeated candidate accusing the elected one of employing corrupt practices in the election should not be dismissed by courts at the threshold solely on technical grounds.

Disposing of an appeal filed against a Gauhati High Court order dismissing an election petition, a Bench comprising Mr Justice R.C. Lahoti and Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar, however, cautioned the courts that the rights of the elected representatives should not be lightly interfered with.

It said: “It is true that in the matters relating to elections and election petitions, strict compliance of the legal provisions is necessary and full care is to be taken to see that the rights of an elected representative are not lightly disturbed.”

“But an election petition is not to be thrown out at the threshold on the slightest pretext of one kind or the other which may or may not have any material bearing on the factors to be strictly adhered to in such matters,” Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar, writing for the Bench, said in a recent judgement.

Saying that it was the substance of the petition rather than its form which would matter, the Bench observed that otherwise a returned candidate would be on the look out microscopically for any kind of technical lacuna or defect to abort the endeavour of the petitioner to bring to trial the issues relating to corrupt practices in the elections.

“The purpose of the law on the point cannot be to allow the returned candidate to avoid trial of the issues of corrupt practices raised against him on the basis of any little defect which may not result in any vital variation between the original and true copy so as to have the effect of misleading the returned candidate,” Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar said.

He said, “As it is, the prevailing situation of elections and practices often said to be adopted now and then and here and there does not always give a very happy picture.

“Free, fair and fearless elections is ideal to be achieved and not be defeated for the sake of pretentious and frivolous technicalities,” he added. PTI