SC agrees to hear pleas challenging Jaishankar's election to RS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed for a combined hearing two weeks later on all three petitions challenging election of external affairs minister S Jaishankar to Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. Other petitions also challenged election of BJP's Jugal M Lokhandwala (Thakor) from the second RS seat from Gujarat in July last year.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde ordered the three petitions to be listed two weeks later for a combined hearing. The defeated candidate, Congress party's Gaurav Hemantbhai Pandya, through advocate Christi Jain termed the election unconstitutional as the Election Commission had held polls for the two Rajya Sabha seats on the same day but through separate voting.
EC had decided to hold polls for the two RS seats vacated by Amit Shah and Smriti Irani after their election to Lok Sabha in May last year. Gujarat Congress in June last year had moved the SC challenging the legality of separate voting for two sets though the elections were held on the same day. The Congress had hoped to bag one RS seat on the basis of its MLA strength in 182-member Assembly if single voting process was used for the two seats.
However, the SC had rejected Gujarat Congress's petition and allowed the EC to go ahead with separate voting process for the two seats. Immediately after declaration of election results, in which both seats were bagged by BJP, the defeated Congress candidates - Pandya and Chandrika Chudasama - had moved the Gujarat High Court challenging the election on the same ground that EC could not have held separate polls for two seats when the elections were held on the same day in the same state concerning the same voter list of MLAs.
During the hearing before the SC in June last year, the EC had defended its decision to hold separate elections for the two RS seats in Gujarat. It had said that there was no illegality in the move as it is as per the practice in vogue since 1957. It had said that both Delhi and Bombay HCs have upheld this practice.
EC had said that it had also adopted the same procedure of using separate poll notifications in 2009 when the two RS seats falling vacant in UP, one due to disqualification of Jaya Bachchan and resignation of Anil Ambani. Dismissing a challenge to this, the Delhi HC had said, "There cannot be any doubt that in so far as the casual vacancy is concerned, holding of joint election is not mandatory even if more than one casual vacancies occurred at the same time."