The Asian Age: New Delhi: Monday, May 22, 2017.
The Delhi
high court has refused to entertain a plea seeking to restrain those defeated
in Lok Sabha elections from contesting the Rajya Sabha polls.
The
petitioner submitted that his repeated requests made to the ministry of law and
justice and the Election Commission under the RTI Act seeking to know what
actions have been taken in this regard did not elicit any response.
He also
sought the court’s direction to restrain candidates defeated in the Lok Sabha
elections from contesting the Rajya Sabha polls. The bench said that the
petitioner had an alternative, equally effective remedy available to him, which
he had not availed.
and
therefore, the petition could not be entertained.
“This writ
petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to invoke an appropriate
remedy of appeal available to him under the Right to Information (RTI) Act,” it
added.
The bench
added that in case, the petitioner was aggrieved by the decision taken by the
appellate tribunal under the RTI, it would be open for him to assail it by way
of appropriate legal proceedings before this court.
The
petitioner, Satya Narayan Prasad, who claimed to be a social activist, had
moved the court saying that India being a democratic country and the people
being supreme in electing its leaders, “it is a misfortune that politicians who
are defeated in the general
elections are
nominated to the Upper House”.
Seeking a
direction to the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Election Commission of
India (ECI), the petitioner had said, “Any candidate who contested Lok Sabha
election and has been defeated, he be declared disqualified for being a Member
of Parliament (MP).”
“Such
candidates cannot be nominated or allowed to contest in Rajya Sabha election,”
the plea had said, adding that this was “against the fundamental principle of
democracy, wherein mandate/votes on Indian citizen is supreme”.
Pleading for
special rules and provisions to ban the leaders who have lost in Lok Sabha
polls from contesting in Rajya Sabha election, the 51-year-old petitioner said
that action be taken against the authorities concerned who have “wrongly
nominated such disqualified candidates for membership in Parliament”.
He said that
no reply had been given by the ministry and the poll panel even after repeated
attempts were made by him to know why an ordinance would not be passed to
prevent such candidates from being nominated to the Upper House.
While
candidates are elected to the Lok Sabha directly by the people, members of the
Rajya Sabha are elected by the elected members of state Assemblies in
accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of single
transferable vote.