The Supreme Court Monday asked Congress MP Sushmita Dev to bring on record EC’S orders giving clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on several complaints of MCC violations over their alleged hate speeches and using armed forces for “political propaganda”.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta fixed for hearing on May 8 the plea of Dev, Lok Sabha MP from Silchar in Assam, and asked her to file the Election Commission’s recent orders absolving the two of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Dev, said the EC has passed “unreasoned” orders while dismissing complaints of MCC violations against Modi and Shah and moreover, there have been reports of dissent by one of the Election Commissioners in passing some of the decisions.

Most of the decisions, which went in favour of the leaders, have not been unanimous and Congress party and its complainant leader has neither been supplied with the copies of these orders nor the grounds for them have been disclosed, he said.

The poll panel, which took actions against other leaders for using similar phraseology, did not act against the Prime Minister and Shah, he said.

The apex court should consider framing guidelines to deal with violations of MCC in a timebound manner as the delay denies the level-playing field to all political parties, Singhvi said, adding that the level playing field for all is part of basic structure of the Constitution.

Dev, in her plea, has alleged inaction by EC in deciding complaints against Modi and Shah and has said that it was “a sign of invidious discrimination” as also “arbitrary, capricious and impermissible” as it was destructive of the integrity of electoral process.

The plea listed out several alleged instances of MCC violations by Modi and Shah in their meetings and referred to as the first violation the speech of Modi at a rally at Wardha, Maharashtra, on April 1 where he had allegedly raised the issue of ‘bhagva aatankwad’ (saffron terror).

Earlier, the apex court had directed the poll panel to decide by May 6, the nine complaints of the Congress party alleging violations of MCC by the Prime Minister and Shah.

EC had said that it has already decided two out of the 11 complaints which were filed by the Congress party against Modi and Shah. The poll panel had said that by May 8, it was likely to consider all the representations of the Congress party and its leader.

The EC has given clean chit to Modi for two of his speeches — one in Latur last month urging first time voters to dedicate their votes in the name of Balakot air strike heroes and soldiers killed in the Pulwama attack, and the other in Wardha on April 1, slamming Congress chief

First Published: May 07, 2019 15:44 IST