Swamped with pleas, Mumbai court asks for tutorial on filing poll nominations

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked the poll body officials to conduct a tutorial on how to fill out the election nomination forms, while adjudicating multiple petitions moved by people after their nomination forms were rejected.
Directing the Election Commission (EC) officials, a bench of Justices Arif Doctor and Somsekhar Sundaresan said, “ECI should have video tutorials on how to fill forms, create awareness.”
The bench was hearing as many as five petitions filed by people who had filed nomination papers from different assemblies in Maharashtra.
Earlier on Tuesday, the bench had rejected one petition also the Aurangabad bench of the High Court also had rejected one similar petition challenging the rejection of the nomination form by the Returning Officer (RO).
On Wednesday, one petition that came up before the court was from Thane, two from Shahpur, one from Chiplun in Ratnagiri and one from Mumbai.
While taking up the petitions, the bench said that it was not inclined to allow the petitions as it would disturb the election schedule. A detailed order would be passed later.
In one of the cases, advocates Arshad Shaikh, Ranjit Agashe and Prashant Trivedi appearing for a petitioner from Bumbai submitted that the petitioner was not administered oath and because of that his nomination was rejected.
Shaikh pointed out that later when an order was passed, at that time, the petitioner was informed that some of the proposers had not signed, which was also a ground for rejection.
Shaikh argued that the RO should not be given unfettered power to trample the fundamental right of a candidate and that there is substantial time for the petitioner to be given another chance as the election is at least two weeks away.
However, the bench said that the names have to be published, and every EVM has to reach every polling booth of every constituency which would take time. “We cannot assume that 14 days is a long time,” said the bench
It further added that even if it is assumed that the RO is wrong in rejecting the nomination form, but if any order passed by it, violates the election schedule then it would not be acceptable.
“We do get your point that the RO cannot be given an unfettered power. We cannot be blind to what is palpable wrong. But if the remedy is to ask RO to reconsider then it will be difficult to hold an election and the big picture of holding an election has to be kept in mind,” the bench said.
The bench further said, “The thing that bothers us is the timeline. Your nomination was rejected on October 30th. On October 4th night the final list of candidates was published by the ECI and you affirmed the petition only on October 5th. Time is of the essence in these matters.”
In other petitions too, the bench said that there was a full bench judgement of the Bombay High Court which did not favour any of the petitioners. The bench said, “Have you seen the full bench order? If you have, then you know the fate of your petition. Whatever reason that it may be for rejection of nomination, the full bench has decided that the court in a Writ jurisdiction cannot go into the issue.”