What Supreme Court said, rejecting Meenakshi Natarajan’s Rajya Sabha plea

“The principles laid down in Ponnuswami has been followed by this court in all election-related disputes whenever an attempt is made to invoke this court’s or the high court’s writ jurisdiction to interject during the process of conduct of election and on every occasion, this court has rejected such an attempt keeping in view the principle contained in Article 329 (b) of the Constitution of India,” it said.

According to Article 329 (b), no election to either House of Parliament or to the House or either House of the state Assembly will be called in question except by an election petition presented to such authority and in such manner as may be provided for by or under any law made by the appropriate legislature.

The bench said the arguments of Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for Natarajan, that “in a case of this nature where rejection of nominations is glaring and manifest, this court must step in to cure the defect, otherwise the very sanctity of the election process would be affected, cannot be accepted in view of the law laid down in Ponnuswami.”

“If this court accepts such an argument to find out glaring cases which are required to be interfered with under Article 32 or 226 of the Constitution of India and the other set of cases in which the rejection is not so improper prima facie, relegating them to avail the remedy of an election petition, this court would be reading some principle which is not provided for under Article 329. We are afraid that any such interpretation that in some of the matters this court can entertain a petition wherein a candidate’s nomination paper has been rejected, while leaving some others to avail the remedy of the election tribunal, should not be encouraged,” it said.

“In view of the above, we are not inclined to entertain this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, which fails and is hereby dismissed,” the bench said, adding that Natarajan can avail the remedy of an election petition should she wish to.

Challenging the returning officer’s decision, Singhvi had argued that Section 33A of The Representation of the People Act required only those cases to be disclosed in which charges had been framed.

He contended that only a notice had been issued to Natarajan under Section 223 of BNS in what was essentially a private complaint, and the court had not yet taken cognizance of the complaint.

“The order passed by the RO is bizarre. If there is no cognizance, there is no case in the eye of law. Even if there is cognizance, I have to disclose after charges are framed. This is rank injustice,” Singhvi said. “In this way a level playing field can be made non-level, then there cannot be any election in this country,” he said.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocate Kanu Agarwal, appearing for the three BJP candidates who were elected unopposed, and Senior Advocate D S Naidu, representing the Election Commission, said details of all cases had to be disclosed, not just those in which charges had been framed.

Article 329, Rohatgi said, barred judicial interference in electoral matters once the election process had commenced.