Kerala High Court Dismisses NDA Candidates' Petitions Challenging Rejection Of Election Nominations

A single bench of Justice N Nagaresh dismissed the  writ petitions filed by BJP candidates N Haridas and Nivedida Subramaniam, and AIADMK candidate RM Dhanalakshmi, whose nominations to contest from Thalassery, Guravayoor and Devikulam constituencies respectively were rejected on the ground that the forms submitted by them did not have the signature of party president.

The bench said that the Court cannot interfere with the decisions taken the Returning Officers of the respective constituencies to reject the nominations papers for not fulfilling the mandatory requirements.

As regards Haridas, the Returning Officer cited the reason that the signature of the President/Secretary of BJP was absent in the 'Form A' submitted along with the nomination. Nivedida's nomination for Guruvayoor was rejected saying that 'Form B' did not have the signature of Party President(Form A is the intimation given by the President or the Secretary of the Political Party to the Returning Officer regarding the person authorized by the Party to nominate the names of the candidates sponsored by the Party. Form B is the intimation given by the authorized person of the party regarding the candidate sponsored by the Party)

Petitioners' argumetns

Senior Advocates S Sreekumar and K Ramkumar, appearing for Haridas and Nivedida respectively, argued that the Returning Officers acted illegally by rejecting the nominations on the basis of technical defects, which were curable. It was argued that the Returning Officers acted with undue haste to reject the nominations, without affording an opportunity to the candidates to cure the defects. Contending that the absence of signature was not fatal, the candidates sought a direction to the Returning Officers to accept their nominations.

According to them, the Returning Officer has discretionary powers to allow the rectification of such defects. In this regard, they argued that in constituencies like Piravom and Kondotty, the Returning Officers had given time to candidates to cure similar defect in election forms.

They also argued that the bar against judicial interference was not applicable in the instant cases as the petitioners were not challenging the election process. There is power under Article 226 of the Constitution to interfere with the arbitrary orders of the Returning Officers, which have infringed the rights of the petitioners.

Advocate PB Krishnan, appearing for the AIADMK candidate from Devikulam, argued that the Returning Officer has powers to allow the rectification of such defects. Similar defects were allowed to be cured in other constituencies. He argued that under Art 324C, the Election Commission could order corrections of such arbitrary exercise of powers by ROs.

Election Commission opposes plea

In a special sitting held on Sunday, the High Court had asked the ECI to give its response to the petitions today.

The Election Commission of India told the Court that judicial interference in poll matters is barred after the notification of elections, as per Article 329B of the Constitution. The signature of Party President was a mandatory requirement under the Rules, and its absence is a substantive defect. Such disputes can only be resolved as per the statutory remedies after the culmination of election.

Since no substitute candidates were fielded, the dismissal means that NDA will have no candidates in these constituencies for the assembly elections scheduled on April 6.

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