Petitioner challenges EC certificate on Katol bypoll delay

Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court again deferred the final order on Katol assembly bypoll after the election commission sought time to challenge the application moved by the petitioner at the last moment.
The petitioner on Thursday challenged the certificate issued by commission regarding difficulties for conducting election during the six months after the seat fell vacant. But, the difficulties were not stated clearly, the petitioner submitted. On March 19, the HC had stayed the bypoll.

Petitioner Sandeep Sarode through counsel Shreerang Bhandarkar submitted that the certificate was issued in the month of February when already four months had passed.

A division bench comprising Justices Sunil Shukre and Pushpa Ganediwala scheduled the next hearing for Tuesday after commission’s counsel sought to file a reply against the application challenging the certificate submitted by the petitioner on Thursday.

Petitioner alleged that the commission acted very casually by issuing the certificate in February.

Opposing the petitioner, the commission requested the court not to accept the application since it was moved after the three-hour arguments on Wednesday and a final decision was expected on Thursday.

The commission’s counsel said, “The application will only delay the decision.”

In fact, even the court asked the petitioner if it is was necessary for the same reason of delay in decision. But, the petitioner was determined that the application be taken into account as it plays an important role in laying emphasis on delay in issuing certificate by commission and not stating the difficulties for not conducting the election earlier.

A day before, five more villagers had filed interventions in the case during the hearing. Before that, two prospective candidates had filed interventions praying for vacating the HC order of March 19 in the writ petition filed by Sarode, a farmer.

The new interveners — Yogesh Chaple, Pramod Dharpure, Gunwanth Khause, Pravin Sawarkar and Harish Dangre belonging to local bodies —have opposed the bypoll beside Sarode. Dinesh Tule and Dinesh Thakre, both villagers, are in favour of it. The bypoll was warranted after BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh quit the party and joined the Congress last year.

Senior counsel MG Bhangde and Neerja Choubey represented election commission while Shreerang Bhandarkar appeared for the petitioner.

State election commission cousnel Jemini Kasat informed that it is mandatory for the election commission to conduct bye-election within 6 months of vacancy and if they could not hold it due to some reasons they have to take a certificate from the Central government giving proper reasons.

(Reporting by Akash Jamthe)