Delhi HC dismisses Uddhav’s plea against Election Commission

On Monday, the court had questioned why it should not wait for the final decision of the poll panel on the dispute between the party factions.

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray against the freezing of his “bow and arrow” party symbol by the Election Commission of India (ECI), even though it directed the poll body to decide the dispute “expeditiously”.

The ECI, in its October 8 interim order, had barred the Shiv Sena factions led by Thackeray and Shinde from using the party name and election symbol in the Andheri East assembly by-poll. (HT PHOTO)

Justice Sanjeev Narula said that a detailed order with the reasoning for its decision to deny relief to Thackeray would be available after two to three days.

“The petition is dismissed….There is no interdict on the matter by the Supreme Court. It would, therefore, be in the interest of the parties and general public that the matter is decided expeditiously [by the ECI]. The Election Commission is directed to decide the dispute as expeditiously as possible,” the judge said after hearing lengthy arguments from all the parties, including the ECI and Eknath Shinde.

On Monday, the court had questioned why it should not wait for the final decision of the poll panel on the dispute between the party factions. It had observed that the court would ask the EC to decide the issue of allotting the ‘bow and arrow’ symbol in a time-bound manner, and both factions could put their contentions before the election panel.

In June this year, Shinde had walked out of the original Shiv Sena with over 40 of the party’s 55 MLAs on the ground that Uddhav Thackeray had deviated from the Shiv Sena’s core ideology of Hindutva by entering into an alliance with the Congress and NCP. Thackeray subsequently resigned from the post of chief minister.

The ECI, in its October 8 interim order, had barred the Shiv Sena factions led by Thackeray and Shinde from using the party name and election symbol in the Andheri East assembly by-poll. Challenging this decision in the HC, Thackeray had said that the ECI’s order should be set aside, as it had been passed in complete violation of the principles of natural justice, without granting any hearing to the parties and without granting an opportunity to give evidence.

Saying that the symbol was developed, designed and copyrighted by the late Balasaheb Thackeray, senior advocate Devdutt Kamat, appearing for Thackeray, had argued that his client was being deprived of his father’s name and symbol despite running the party for 30 years.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, also for Thackeray, had contended that the ECI could not be permitted to proceed on the assumption that Shinde had not been disqualified when the issue was still pending before the Supreme Court.

Continuing the arguments on Tuesday, senior counsel Sibal told the court that the ECI at the outset should have realised that it could not assume that there were two factions of the same party till the time the issue was decided by the apex court. Sibal claimed that Thackeray had asked the ECI to provide the documents filed by Shinde in the matter several times but all that was provided to him after much delay was a Google link in October, that too without a password.

Advocate Siddhant Kumar, appearing for the ECI, opposed the submissions by the Thackeray camp and said that “malicious allegations were made against a constitutional body” although orders to freeze election symbols had been passed in the case of other parties before. He said that the ECI had complete authority in matters of allotment of symbols.

Contending that there was no infirmity in the ECI’s interim order, the counsel assured the court that all objections would be considered to decide the matter.

Senior counsel Rajiv Nayar, appearing for Eknath Shinde, said that the conduct of Uddhav Thackeray before the commission had to be highlighted because “he does not actually want a resolution”.

Senior lawyer Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for the ECI and also for Shinde, added that the ECI had the authority to pass interim orders which had been upheld by the Supreme Court. He said the ECI could decide the matter as it thought fit.

During the hearing on Monday, the court had questioned Uddhav’s plea that the current CM Shinde himself had admitted and accepted that Uddhav had been elected as the President (Shivsena Paksha Pramukh) and to date continued to occupy the post of the President of Shiv Sena. “… it is the President who is the highest authority in the party, whose decisions in all matters concerning the party policy and party administration are final,” the plea said.