Delhi High Court refuses urgent hearing of retired judge’s PIL against poll freebies

“Tomorrow is the last day for electioneering or maybe today… Whatever impact the freebies were to have has already happened,” the bench orally remarked while refusing urgent hearing. Delhi will vote on Wednesday.

Dhingra moved the court against the three national parties over their promises to distribute financial aid among voters if voted to power. The PIL also seeks that such schemes be declared unconstitutional and classified as election manipulation.

The collection of voters’ data “and possible misuse without their explicit consent is a violation of their fundamental right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”, Justice Dhingra has said in his petition.

Justice (retd) Dhingra is seeking high court directions for the three political parties to “cease and desist from collecting personal and electoral data of voters under false pretence” and that they be directed not to share and use data collected during elections with any third party.

The PIL is also seeking directions for the Election Commission of India to frame rules for political parties regarding promises to distribute cash among voters, to conduct an inquiry into “corrupt practices and illegal data collection”, and to strengthen monitoring mechanisms to prevent violation of electoral laws.

Justice (retd) Dhingra first made headlines when he awarded the death penalty to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He also investigated Robert Vadra’s land deals. He was elevated as a judge of the Delhi High Court in 2006 and retired from the court in 2011. He faced judicial scrutiny in 2017 for possible misuse of his mandate as a court-appointed observer in a family business dispute, and in 2018 he was appointed as chairman of the SIT looking into the closed cases of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.