HC directs EC to conduct RK Nagar bypoll by Dec 31

The Madras high court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission to conduct the byelection to the RK Nagar assembly constituency in Chennai, lying vacant for nearly a year, by December 31, as ordered by it earlier.

The constituency fell vacant after the death of sitting member and then Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on December 5 last. An earlier notification for holding the bypoll on April 12 was rescinded over alleged electoral malpractices.

First bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar gave the direction to the EC while closing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's petition seeking verification of the electoral roll to weed out bogus voters in the constituency.

It rejected the poll body's apprehension that there was a possibility of candidates and their supporters bribing the voters if polling was held ahead of festivals like Christmas and 'Pongal' (the latter celebrated in mid-January).

The bench closed the petition by DMK secretary R S Bharathi after recording the submission by EC counsel Niranjan Rajagopal that 100 per cent verification of the electoral rolls had been done during which names of 45,819 voters had been deleted.

It asked the EC to publish the information about the deletion on its website by Wednesday.

The court said it was expected that the EC will announce the election date for the constituency at the earliest and conduct the exercise by December 31, as directed in its September 18 order, on a public interest litigation petition.

In a separate order on a connected petition by the DMK candidate in the cancelled bypoll, the bench said the pendency of the matter would not prevent the EC from going ahead with the announcement and conduct of the byelection.

It recorded the submission of senior counsel P Wilson for the petitioner that his client was not pressing his prayer for forbearing the EC from notifying the bypoll without taking penal action against those involved in electoral malpractices, which led to the cancellation of the voting earlier.

The counsel for the EC on Monday mentioned the matter before the bench and said the commission was not in a position to declare the schedule for the by-election in view of the pendency of the two petitions.

On the petition by the DMK candidate in the cancelled bypoll, N Maruthu Ganesh, the court ordered notice to the Union government, EC and ten other respondents over his prayer to frame appropriate guidelines to ensure the accountability of the commission for its actions and inactions.

Submitting that the EC cancelled the byelection based on a letter by the Income Tax department, naming some persons who indulged in "bribing" the voters, the petitioner sought to know why no action was taken against them.

A police complaint lodged by then Returning Officers did not name the offenders though the I-T had mentioned them, counsel for the petitioner said alleging collusion between the officers and the offenders.

EC's counsel Rajagopal submitted that the commission was an independent body and hence, the prayer to direct the Centre to frame guidelines to be followed by it was against the constitution. He wanted it to be rejected.

Regarding the investigation into electoral malpractices, he said a petition relating to it was pending in court.

On the charges against the returning officers, the counsel contended that the petitioners had not made any representation to the EC before making the "personal allegations" in the petition.

The petitioner has also sought a compensation of Rs 5 lakh from the EC towards his campaign expenditure for the cancelled byelection, and urged for recovering it from persons who indulged in the malpractices.