Kande’s writ petition, filed through advocate Ajinkya Udane, has challenged an Election Commission (EC) order issued late on June 10 that disallowed his Rajya Sabha vote.
According to the EC decision, he breached the voting protocol and ballot paper confidentiality by failing to fold the ballot paper after casting his vote.
On election day, after the votes were cast, Yogesh Sagar, a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MLA, accused Kande of showing his ballot paper to a whip of a political party other than the Shiv Sena.
The Election Officer, Rajendra Bhagwat, dismissed Sagar’s protest after deciding that the allegations were factually wrong.
Following that, Muktar Abbas Naqvi, Gajendrasingh Shekhawat, Jitendra Singh, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Om Pathak, Avadeshkumar Singh, and Sanket Gupta of the BJP reportedly submitted a representation to the Election Commission of India that Rajendra Bhagwat had wrongly rejected Yogesh Sagar’s objection.
The contested order was issued based on this assertion.
The plea before the High Court has taken exception to the order on the following grounds:
1. The Handbook for Returning Officer for Election to Council of the State and the State Legislative Council published by the Election Commission of India contains no provision providing appellate power to the EC of India over orders passed by the Election Officer.
2. The power of Election Commission of India to exercise superintendence and control over election is different from exercising appellate jurisdiction over an order passed by the Election Officer.
3. Even if it is assumed that the EC has appellate jurisdiction, it cannot be exercised at the instance of political leaders who are not voters in the election.
4. No opportunity of being heard was provided to Kande.
5. The objection was raised after the ballot paper was put in the election box and not before.
6. No finding has been recorded by the EC that records that the ballot paper was shown to the whip of another political party.
Therefore, the petition has prayed for quashing of the EC order dated 10 June that declared Kande’s vote as invalid. It has also asked for a temporary injunction restraining the Election Commission from exercising appellate power over the Election Officer’s orders.
The plea will be heard by a bench of Justices S Gangapurwala and DS Thakur on June 15.
Source: Barandbench
