Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 – cl.16A – Government Welfare Schemes after the names of any living personality, leaders – Permissibility – State of Tamil Nadu promulgated a scheme known as “Ungaludan Stalin”, meaning “Your’s Stalin – Respondent no.1-sitting Member of Parliament, belonging to political party in opposition filed representation/complaint before the ECI, and three days later, filed writ petition – Interim order by the High Court that while launching and operating Government Welfare Schemes through various advertisements, the names of any living personality, photograph of any former Chief Minister/ideological leaders or party insignia/emblem/flag of appellant not to be included – Challenge to:
Held: Launching of schemes in the name of political leaders is a phenomenon which is followed throughout the Country – When such schemes are floated in the name of leaders of all the political parties, the anxiety of the writ petitioner to choose only one political party and one political leader cannot be appreciated – If the writ petitioner was so concerned about the misuse of public funds by the political parties, the writ petitioner would have made a challenge to all such schemes across the Country, however, singling out only one scheme by one political party in the name of one political leader, smacks about the motives of the writ petitioner – Also, the manner in which the petition has been filed, smacks about the motives of the writ petitioner – Power u/clause 16A is available to the Commission when it deals with suspension or withdrawal of recognition of a recognized political party for its failure to observe Model Code of Conduct or to follow lawful directions and instructions of the Commission – Undisputedly, there is no Model Code of Conduct operating in the State of Tamil Nadu – As regards the tenability of such a representation before the ECI, even without giving an opportunity to the ECI to decide the said representation, the writ petitioner rushed to the High Court within three days of making the representation – Not giving even a breathing period to the ECI and making statements with regard to the Commission’s failure to act on the representation within a reasonable period, the writ petitioner, also tried to castigate the ECI – Political battles should be fought before the electorate, the Courts should not be used to settle the political scores between the rival political parties – Writ Petition not only misconceived in law, but total abuse of the process of law – Impugned order quashed and set aside – Costs of Rs. 10 lakhs imposed. [Paras 20-28]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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