Delhi HC dismisses challenge to rejection of nomination papers of 11 candidates desirous of fighting polls against CM Arvind Kejriwal

The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition against rejection of nomination papers of 11 candidates desirous of fighting polls against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal..A single judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva held that the petition under Article 226 was not maintainable in view of the embargo on Court's jurisdiction under Art 329(b) of the Constitution of India and Section 100 of the Representation of People Act, 1951..It was the Petitioners' grievance that the Returning Officer wrongly rejected their nomination papers and also showed preference to the Delhi Chief Minister when he arrived at the Election Office to file his nomination..Counsel for Election Commission, Advocate Siddhant Kumar raised a preliminary objection against the petition on the ground of its maintainability under Article 226.Kumar relied on Sections 80 and 100 of the Representation of People Act and Article 329(b) of the Constitution to contend that an Election Petition after the elections are over was the appropriate remedy..Reliance was also placed on decisions by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in NP Ponnuswami vs Returning Officer and Mohinder Singh Gills vs CEC to establish that the jurisdiction of the High Court under article 226 was barred..Counsel for the Petitioners, Advocate Viplav Sharma, however, contended that the judgements were not applicable as the judgments had not noticed section 100 of the RP Act in its entirety.It was further contended that filing of an Election Petition was not an efficacious remedy as countermanding an election entailed huge costs and inconvenience to stakeholders.Sharma remarked that by the time an election petition is decided by the Courts, 3-4 years go by..The Court took strong objections to the 'allegations' made by the counsel and said,"Bar Council Rules prohibit lawyers from becoming a mouthpiece of their client..This is unbecoming of a senior lawyer like you..".After hearing the parties at length, the Court, without going into the merits of the case, concluded that the petition was not maintainable.Reiterating that right to fight an election was not a civil right but a creation of the statute, the Court observed that all the contentions put forth by the Petitioners were decided and settled by the Supreme Court in its Constitution Bench judgments.