High Court dismisses plea of rejected candidate, says he must wait till results

P Singaravel, a practicing lawyer, had submitted that he wanted to contest in the by-election for Ottapidaram constituency set to be held on May 19. But his nomination was rejected on the ground that he failed to enclose the extract of the electoral roll and the original community certificate before the scrutiny time.

Contending that there was only a minor delay in submitting these two documents, the petitioner’s counsel assailed the conduct of the returning officer in hastily rejecting the nomination. He wanted the court to interfere in the matter and grant an interim order restraining the holding of the election on the notified day.

However, the division bench comprising Justice GR Swaminathan and Justice T Krishnavalli cited a number of Supreme Court and HC verdicts and held that any election-related disputes, which does not affect the election, should be brought before a special tribunal by means of an election petition and not be made the subject of a dispute before any court while the election is in progress. The bench also referred to Section 100 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which states that if the HC was of the opinion that any nomination has been improperly rejected, it shall declare the election of the returned candidate to be void. "Therefore, the writ petitioner is very much having a remedy. If his nomination has been improperly rejected, his remedy is to go before the election tribunal, which in this case will be the HC," it added. "The petitioner will have to necessarily wait for the conclusion of the election process and thereafter he can challenge the same. Therefore, this writ petition is not maintainable."