Madras high court bins PIL seeking to regulate use of reserved election symbols

CHENNAI: Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking direction to the Election Commission (ECI) to frame appropriate guidelines to prevent misuse of reserved election symbols allotted to recognised political parties. The petitioner, advocate M L Ravi alleged that candidates affiliated to other parties are allowed to contest in the reserved symbols allotted to major recognised political parties.

Refusing to entertain the plea, the first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan said that such issues can be challenged only through an election petition after the conclusion of the election.

"Where is the violation. Please point out. You cannot because there are no violations. Without any ground, without substantiating any grievance how can you file such a petition, this should be dismissed with cost," the court observed.

The bench added that only after the conclusion of the election cause of action arises. If you are able to justify that the candidate belongs to a different party then only an election petition can be filed that too after the conclusion of the election.

Earlier, counsel for the ECI Niranjan Rajagopalan pointed out that the petitioner had filed a similar petitioner earlier and the same had been dismissed by the court.

According to the petitioner, though the law mandates that only a member of a political party can use the reserved symbol allotted to the party to contest an election, smaller alliance partners are allowed to contest in such reserved symbols in violation of the regulation.

"This practice results in a serious misrepresentation before the returning officer as well as the electorate, since Form B contains a certification that the candidate is a member of the issuing political party. When such certification is made in respect of a candidate who belongs to another political party, it creates a legal inconsistency and misleads the voters regarding the true political affiliation of the candidate," he said.

Free and fair elections form part of the basic structure of the constitution, and voters have a fundamental right to know the true background and political affiliation of candidates, as recognised by the Supreme Court in the PUCL case, he added.