Delhi High Court Rejects Plea Challenging Patiala House Courts Bar Elections 2025

The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea seeking to declare the New Delhi Bar Association (NDBA) Elections, 2025, for Patiala House Courts as null and void and for conducting fresh polls.

Justice Mini Pushkarna said that the election process of the NDBA cannot be said to have any public character, and cannot be decided in writ proceedings.

The Court said that the election process of NDBA or the results declared are not connected to the functions of any State, government or authority under the law, and are not intrinsically connected with the public functioning of the Court.

“The result was also declared by the RO, who is also an individual private person and member of the NDBA. Thus, the election process of the NDBA and challenge thereto, in the facts and circumstances of the present case, cannot be said to have any public character,” the Court said.

The plea was filed by various lawyers who were amongst various contesting candidates for different posts in the NDBA Elections held in March last year. They alleged that the elections were not conducted in a free and fair manner and large-scale rigging took place within the knowledge of the authorities.

They said that the miscreants created ruckus inside the polling booth for about one and a half hours and captured the entire polling station. It was alleged that during this period, the proximity scanning process was altogether made not workable and the votes were cast by unverified members.

Rejecting the plea, the Court said that a pure election dispute challenging the result of an election, on the basis of disputed questions of facts, is purely a private dispute, which ought to be raised by way of an Election Petition, if the rules provide for the same, or, alternatively by filing a civil suit.

“The present petition, being in the nature of an election dispute, whereby, the petitioners are seeking to agitate a purely private cause/interest, i.e., to assert a right to be elected as an office bearer of the NDBA, is not maintainable. Thus, consistent with the established position of law, challenges to the conduct of an election are appropriately addressed in an Election Petition or a civil suit, and not through a writ petition,” the Court said.

Justice Pushkarna noted ithat no complaint regarding any malfunctioning of machines used for scanning of proximity cards was received in the Court.

While the court dismissed the plea, it granted liberty to the petitioners to raise various issues pertaining to the election process of NDBA by way of filing a civil suit.

“If such a civil suit is filed by the petitioners, the same shall be considered and decided on its own merits, without being influenced by the observations and findings in the present case,” the Court said.

Title: VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA & ORS v. THE RETURNING OFFICER NDBA ELECTIONS, 2025

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