Home India Politics Apex court refuses to interfere with Maharashtra Rajya Sabha bypoll

Apex court refuses to interfere with Maharashtra Rajya Sabha bypoll

By IANS,

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday refused to interfere with the Aug 10 bypoll to three Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra, dismissing a lawsuit which challenged the Election Commission’s decision to hold it through three separate ballot papers rather than one ballot paper.

A bench of Justice H.S. Bedi and Justice J.M. Panchal dismissed the lawsuit saying that after beginning of the election process and issuance of the schedule by the poll panel, the constitution bars courts from interfering.

The Election Commission had issued on July 23 its poll schedule to fill the three vacancies arising after three Rajya Sabha members – Supriya Sule, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Praful Patel – got elected to the Lok Sabha in May this year.

The lawsuit was filed by Shiv Sena member Suresh Rahul Nawrekar, who contended that the decision to hold the elections separately through separate ballot papers negates the spirit of Article 84 of the Constitution, which lays down the principle of proportional representation through single transferable votes for the Rajya Sabha election.

Appearing for Nawrekar, senior counsel Harish Salve pleaded to the bench that the lawsuit involved an important legal question and needed to be converted into a public interest lawsuit.

But the bench refused to accede to his request, saying that for that the petitioner will have to approach the court of the Chief justice of India.

Article 84 of the Constitution lays down the principle of proportional representation through single transferable votes for the Rajya Sabha election, Nawrekar pointed out in his lawsuit. He added that this principle was actually laid down to ensure that a state is represented in the Rajya Sabha in proportion to its population.

And, accordingly, even parties with smaller number of members in the state legislatures are able to elect their candidates for the Rajya Sabha, he said.

But that is possible, the lawsuit said, only when the elections for all the casual vacancies, numbering more than one, are held together through a single ballot paper, giving each member of the state legislature an opportunity to cast “his single vote” to choose from among the candidates in the fray.

This method of holding elections together for multiple vacancies in the upper house would ensure that the largest party in the state legislature is not able to corner all the vacant seats of the house, it said.

He added that if the election for several Rajya Sabha seats are held together, even smaller parties stand a chance to get seats in the upper house.

But in case the elections are held separately with as many ballot papers as there are vacancies, each member of the house gets as many chances to vote as the number of ballot papers and this results in the largest party cornering all the seats.

This defies the principle which accords each member a single transferable vote, he added.