Madras High Court: A Bench of G.R. Swaminathan and T. Krishnavalli, JJ. refused to entertain a writ petition that challenged the decision of the Returning Officer whereby the petitioner’s nomination filed for contesting by-election was rejected.
The petitioner was a practicing lawyer wanting to contest the by-election for Ottapidaram reserved constituency to be held on 19-5-2019. His nomination was rejected on the ground that he failed to enclose the extract of electoral roll the original Community Certificate before official scrutiny time.
G. Thalaimutharasu, Advocate for the petitioner seriously faulted the conduct of the Returning Officer in hastily rejecting his nomination. Per contra, J. Padmavathi, Special Government Pleader supported the impugned decision.
The High Court found itself unable to agree with the arguments of the petitioner. Relying on the Supreme Court decisions in N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, AIR 1952 SC 64; Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner, (1978) 1 SCC 405; and Manda Jaganath v. K.S. Rathnam, (2004) 7 SCC 492, the High Court noted: “Article 329 of the Constitution contains a blanket bar against entertaining such writ petitions.” Referring to Section 100 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, it was held that if the petitioner’s nomination was improperly rejected, his remedy is to file an election petition before the Election Tribunal, which in this case will be the High Court. It was held further: “The petitioner will have to necessarily wait for the conclusion of the election process and thereafter, he can challenge the same.” Therefore, the writ petition was dismissed as not maintainable. [P. Singaravel v. Chief Electoral Officer, WP (MD) No. 11505 of 2019, Order dated 02-05-2019]
