Nomination Of 3 Puducherry MLAs- "Only Grievance Appears To Be That They Are BJP Members": Madras High Court Dismisses PIL

The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition assailing the Central Government's decision to nominate three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members to the Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory of Puducherry. The Central Government exercised its powers in terms of Section 3(3) of the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 ('1963 Act') to nominate three members to Puducherry Legislative Assembly. Dismissing the plea, a Bench of Justice Dr. Anita Sumanth and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy observed that the nominees [K Venkatesan, VP Ramalingam and RV Ashok Babu] do not attract the specific statutory disqualifications and their alleged unsuitability is in general and non-specific terms. The Court remarked: "Unless the allegation of unsuitability goes to the very fundamentals of the matter and the candidate nominated is shown to be ex-facie and patently unsuitable, such that his/her nomination would rebel against one's conscience, the question of the Court reviewing the suitability of a candidate does not arise." Importantly, the Court also observed: "At the risk of repetition, we may state that the only grievance of the petitioner appears to be the nominees are members of the BJP. This can hardly be a relevant consideration." The matter before the Court The petitioner-G A Jagannathan (ex-President of the Karikalampakkam Village, Puducherry) submitted that the nominations must be of eminent men from the fields of Science, Economics, and Law, who are persons of repute in their chosen fields and that this wasn't the case with these 3 people. To this, the Court specifically said that Article 80(3) states that the nominees by the President under Article 80(1) shall be of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in the areas of literature, Science, Art, and social service, however, this requirement has not been echoed in the 1963 Act. The impugned notification (nominating three people to assembly) was challenged on the sole ground that the nominees are not suitable to hold the positions for which they have been nominated, however, no ground was either raised or argued to the effect that the pre-conditions/statutory disqualifications are attracted. Further, the Court held that their nominations did not attract the specific statutory disqualifications and their alleged unsuitability was in general and non-specific terms. Also, it was submitted that there had been undue haste in nominating these members in view of the fact that the Chief Minister had tested positive for COVID-19 and had been admitted in the hospital and the Legislative Assembly and Cabinet had not been sworn in/constituted at the time when the nominations were made. To this, the Court said: "This is more a challenge to propriety rather than one of law. In law, we do not find any specification in the statute stipulating the timing of the nomination and the candidates, once nominated, would take their seats in the Legislative Assembly as and when the Assembly is sworn-in." When the petitioner argued that the nominations must be of eminent men from the fields of Science, Economics, and Law, who are persons of repute in their chosen fields, the Court said: "Whilst one cannot fault this as a general proposition and such choices would indeed be ideal, one cannot impose such criteria in the absence of any such conditions in the applicable statutory provisions." The Court also made the following observations: The Court observed that the scope of judicial review in matters of this nature was extremely limited and that the challenge to Having analyzed Section 3(3) of the 1963 Act, the Court noted that the only condition imposed disqualifying nomination thereunder, was that the nominee does not serve under the Government, however, it wasn't the case with these 3 nominated members. Importantly, the Court remarked that it was conscious that there was no reference to the R P Act in the 1963 Act and it believed that the criteria for nomination/selection both at the levels of Centre and State/Union Territory must be uniform and it would perhaps be open for a Court to test whether the disqualifications prescribed under other enactments, such as those noticed above, should also be borne in mind when candidates are nominated for Legislative Assemblies of State/UT. However, the Court added: "Since there is no allegation which touches upon any of the disqualifications enumerated above. We thus leave this question open, to be decided another day, in a more appropriate matter."Case title - G.A.Jagannathan v. The Union of India and othersClick Here To Download OrderRead Order

Nomination Of 3 Puducherry MLAs- "Only Grievance Appears To Be That They Are BJP Members": Madras High Court Dismisses PIL

Sparsh Upadhyay

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