Chandigarh, December 26: Just two days after the competent authority was given 48 hours to pass fresh orders upon receiving complaints regarding eligibility of candidates for the panchayat polls, the state of Punjab on Wednesday moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court for modification, review or recalling of orders.
One of the grounds taken by the state was that the election petition was the only remedy available to the petitioner-candidates.
Punjab Additional Advocate-General Ramiza Hakim requested for early hearing on the application before the Vacation Bench of Justice Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul. Taking a note of the request, the Bench fixed the case for further hearing on Thursday.
In its 12-page application, the state asserted that the grievance by the petitioners in the writ petition could only be gone into in an election petition after the evidence came on record. It was added that proper alternative remedy available to the petitioners was, in fact, election petition.
It could be filed after the election result was declared. Referring to judgments on the issue, the state submitted that the courts had time and again held that the issue of disputed question of law involved in electoral matters. The state added that the process had already commenced and even withdrawal had taken place on December 21. As such, the whole process could not be rescheduled. Besides, the polling, fixed for December 30, could not be postponed.
In an apparent attempt to justify the non-raising of the issues at the time of decision by the Bench, the state submitted that certain judgments, besides position in fact and law, could not be brought to the court’s notice as a bunch of about 100 petitions were filed, mentioned and listed post normal court hours.
The notice was accepted in the court and the cases were disposed of the same day. As such, the applicant-respondent was in effect given little or no opportunity to deal with the contentions raised in the petition. The Bench was also told that all ballot papers in most of the district had already been printed with the names of the eligible candidates.
A Vacation Bench had directed the aggrieved petitioners to make representations for redressal of their grievances to the Deputy Commissioners. They, in turn, would be responsible for forwarding fresh representation, if received from the petitioners, to the competent authorities throughout the state to consider the same within a period of 48 hours of the receipt.
The Bench had added that similarly placed persons having grievances of similar nature may approach the competent authorities for redressal of the same rather than approaching the High Court.
