The Supreme Court on Wednesday lifted its stay on the election to the 65 seats of the Rajya Sabha and allowed the Election Commission to announce a revised schedule for the polls.
A vacation bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Venkatarama Reddi gave this order while allowing applications of the Union government and the EC seeking vacation of the interim order of June 4 staying a notification announcing the commencement of the poll process.
However, the bench said the election would be subject to the court's final decision on a petition challenging the amended electoral law allowing open ballot system and doing away with domicile status of the candidates.
Both the government and the opposition are looking forward to the RS elections to get their ministers and leaders elected to Parliament.
Accepting the suggestion of senior Advocate Fali S Nariman, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, the bench asked all the candidates contesting for seats in the upper House to clearly state in their nomination forms the state in which they ordinarily resided and the electoral roll in which their name figures.
Nariman had stated that in case the court accepted the plea of the petitioners -- Kuldip Nayar and Inder Jit -- that the doing away with the domicile status was unconstitutional, then those who got elected from a state to Rajya Sabha, without being an ordinary resident of that state, would lose their membership in the House.
