The Kerala High Court at a special sitting held on Sunday asked the Election Commission (EC) to respond to the pleas of BJP candidates in Thalassery and Guruvayur assembly constituencies against the rejection of their nomination papers by the Returning Officers of the respective constituencies.
Justice N. Nagaresh also adjourned to March 22 the petitions for further hearing. The petitions were filed by N. Haridas, NDA candidate in Thalassery assembly constituency, and Mahila Morcha State president and NDA candidate in Guruvayur Assembly, Nivedida Subramanian.
The nomination papers of Mr. Haridas were rejected on the ground that Form A submitted along with the papers did not have the signature of BJP president J.P. Nadda while the nomination papers of Ms Nivedida were rejected as the Form B submitted by her did not contain the signature of the BJP president.
In their petition, the BJP candidates contended that the rejection of their nomination papers were unauthorised and arbitrary.
They pointed out that the nomination papers could not be rejected solely on account of minor defects in Form No.A or B as per Rule 4 of the Conduct of Election Rules.
It was true that when the nomination papers were submitted some minor errors were noticed. While Form B submitted by the Guruvayur candidate contained the seal of the State Committee BJP, Form No. A had the authorisation issued by the national president in favour of the State president with the printing of his specimen signature. Though the significance of the party president was omitted in Form No. B it was provided in Form No. A.
She alleged that that the Returning Officer had abused his powers with a view to helping the CPI(M) candidate. The Guruvayur candidate also pointed out that time had been granted to the LDF candidates in Konni and Piravom constituencies to correct the defects in the nomination papers. Besides, the scrutiny of the nomination papers in the constituencies had been postponed. But no such time was granted to the petitioner to rectify the mistakes in her nomination papers.
Mr.Haridas pointed out that the only defect noted in Form A was that it did not have the signature of the national president. In fact, the petitioner had submitted revised Form No.A with the signature of the BJP national president. Therefore, the rejection of his nomination was illegal.
Opposing the pleas, Counsel for the Election Commission submitted that Article 329 (b) of the Constitution mandated that no election either to the Parliament or to the Assembly election in a State shall be called into question except by an election petition. Therefore, the petitioners were now left with the only option of filing election petitions after the declaration of the election results
Meanwhile, the UDF candidate in Thalassery constituency moved a petition seeking to implead in the petition filed by Mr. Haridas.