The Supreme Court issued notices on a batch of petitions challenging the election of S Jaishankar to Rajya Sabha
New Delhi:
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued notices on a batch of petitions challenging the choice of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar to Rajya Sabha of Gujarat.
The petitions have also raised the issue of the Election Commission’s power to issue separate notifications for holding by-elections for occasional and regular vacancies in Rajya Sabha.
One of the petitions against Mr. Jaishankar was presented by the leader of Congress, Gaurav Pandya.
A bench made up of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian took note of the presentations by Chief Counsel Kapil Sibal that a date be set to hear these matters.
“We will give it a short date and it will be included in an unchanged day,” the bank said in a hearing by videoconference.
Lead attorney Harish Salve, who appears on behalf of Mr. Jaishankar, accepted the notice.
Earlier, the high court had said that it would like to make an authoritative ruling on the question of the Election Commission’s power to issue separate notifications for holding by-elections for regular and casual elections to fill vacancies in Rajya Sabha.
The pleas concerned the Rajya Sabha 2019 general vote in two Gujarat seats and both seats were won by BJP candidates.
Previously, the high court had said that there was no authoritative ruling by the Supreme Court on whether the election of more than one vacancy should be held separately or jointly.
On February 4, the Gujarat High Court had dismissed Congressional Leader Gaurav Pandya’s petition against the election of Jaishankar to the Rajya Sabha.
It had also dismissed two other petitions filed by Congressional leaders Chandrikaben Chudasama and Pareshkumar Dhanani against the choice of the BJP candidate Jugalji Thakore.
Chandrikaben Chudasama and Pareshkumar Dhanani have also moved to the high court against the High Court order dismissing their electoral petitions against Thakore.
Both Jaishankar and Thakore were elected to Rajya Sabha on July 5 last year in by-elections held in the vacant seats by Union Ministers Amit Shah and Smriti Irani.
Jaishankar and Thakore had defeated the congressional candidates, Pandya and Chudasama, respectively, in the parliamentary elections.
Congressional leaders had submitted a motion to the superior court, challenging the election on the grounds that the Election Commission notices, which considered the two vacant seats to be of different categories and required that the by-elections be held separately, were “illegal and violated the provisions of the Constitution, the People’s Representation Law (RP) of 1951 and the Regulations for the development of the 1961 elections.
The higher court had dismissed the petitions saying that the petitioners did not disclose the cause of action under the provisions of the PR Law relating to the grounds for declaring the elections invalid.
It also said that the petitioners did not point to any provision of the Constitution or the PR Law that requires the Electoral Commission to hold a single by-election to fill all occasional vacancies.
“Failure to comply with the provisions of the Constitution or the provisions of said Law (RP) that constitute the cause of the action must be specifically alleged, and the petitioner’s interpretation of a particular provision of the Constitution or the Law in a particular way It cannot be classified as a breach of said provision for the purpose of contesting the election, “the higher court had said.
Jaishankar and Thakore had argued before the high court that the EC did not violate any rules by holding separate elections for two seats and it has been a consistent practice of the voting panel since 2009 to issue separate notifications for the holding of by-elections for occasional vacancies in the Rajya. Sabha.
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