"Dawood Ibrahim would also contest": Delhi High Court rejects PIL for jailed politicians to campaign for elections

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation petition (PIL) seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to develop a mechanism to ensure that arrested political leaders and candidates can campaign in elections via video conference..A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora stopped short of imposing costs on the petitioner (a law student) but told his counsel to teach him about the separation of powers.."You want all the people arrested to be allowed to campaign in elections through VC. I am telling you, if this is done, all the dreaded criminals will form political parties. Dawood Ibrahim would contest election and campaign through VC," ACJ Manmohan remarked..The Bench added that it does not want to get into the political thicket but everyone wants the Court to enter into the political domain. ACJ Manmohan said that in the last few weeks, Court has dealt with several petitions which either say put a person in jail or let him be released..The Court remarked that there is propaganda involved in the petition and the Court is aware of that."There is little bit of propaganda involved in this.. There is publicity involved in this as well. There is an attempt to involve court into all this. It is becoming a part of strategy and don’t think we don’t understand the strategy," it said..It added that the petition was contrary to fundamental principles of law."People have this notion that we (Courts) are not bound by the law... You (petitioner) are asking us to act contrary to the law. You are asking us to legislate," the Court said..The Court warned that it will impose more than ₹75K costs on the petitioner since he has filed the plea despite the fact that the Court had previously rejected a plea seeking extraordinary interim bail for Arvind Kejriwal. The previous plea was dismissed with costs of ₹75K..As the counsel appearing for the petitioner said that the petitioner is a law student and the cost may not be imposed, the Bench said that it will not impose costs if the counsel teaches the petitioner about separation of powers..The PIL was filed by one Amarjeet Gupta and prayed that the ECI must come up with a mechanism to allow arrested leaders to campaign through video conference, unless they are convicted.Gupta argued that he is aggrieved by the timing of arrests of various political leaders after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections came into force on March 16, 2024.He referred to the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and said that the arrest deprived the people of Delhi of their fundamental right to get information from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by way of being spectator/listeners of the election campaign.The right of voters to be informed about the ideology, plans and programs of the AAP has been curtailed on account of Kejriwal’s arrest, the plea stated.“Further, the leaders of political parties are also deprived of their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental and legal right to campaign during the election,” the plea argued.It added, "It is pertinent to mention that there are different political parties in power ruling the Government of NCT of Delhi and the Government of India. In fact, both the political parties are in opposition to each other. Therefore, the timing of the arrest of the aforesaid party leader vitiates the level playing field as his right to campaign has been curtailed due to the action of the Directorate of Enforcement. Further, the right of voters to be informed about the ideology, plans and programs of the Aam Aadmi Party has been curtailed on account of the arrest.”.The petition sought directions to be issued to the Central government to inform ECI immediately when a political leader or a candidate is arrested.Gupta argued that when the MCC is in force, the ECI is informed about the people who are put in preventive detention but the arrests made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are not communicated to the Election Commission. .Advocate Md Imran Ahmad appeared for the petitioner.Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Central Government Standing Counsel Apoorv Kurup appeared for Union of India.Standing Counsel Ankit Agarwal along with advocates Ashish Shukla and Atul Raj appeared for ECI.