Plea in Delhi HC alleging special treatment to Kejriwal in filing nomination for assembly polls

Eleven people on Monday approached the Delhi High Court seeking "reasonable time" to file their nomination for the upcoming assembly polls alleging they were not able to do the same due to long queue and special treatment to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The High Court slated the matter for hearing on Tuesday after advocate Viplav Sharma, representing the eleven aspirants, mentioned the matter for an urgent hearing before a division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Harishankar.

Sharma alleged that officials deputed at Jam Nagar Election Office facilitated Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to walk inside the election office out of turn and evade the queue for filing his nomination from New Delhi assembly constituency.

The petitioners, including one Kiran Pal Singh Tyagi, also requested the Delhi High Court to hold an enquiry on the manner in which the candidates were dealt with by the election officers and how Arvind Kejriwal was "allowed to file his nomination out of turn".

The aspirants have requested the Delhi High Court to issue appropriate directions to the poll panel to give them "shortest possible reasonable time" to file their nomination papers.

The plea sought directions to concerned officials to make appropriate guidelines and to facilitate the smooth filing of the nomination papers by all candidates from all walks of Indian society.

"To make provisions/ guidelines for requiring the candidates to submit an identical copy of their nomination papers to be submitted to returning Officer / Election Officer, the whole copy whereof be thereafter returned to the candidates after scrutiny with the order of finding such nomination to be found valid or rejected," the plea said.

The petitioner said that their nomination papers were wrongly, illegally, arbitrarily and unconstitutionally rejected and thereby, they have been illegally and unconstitutionally deprived of their constitutional rights. "Because the grounds of rejection of the nomination papers of the Petitioners are flimsy non-germane," the plea said.

The petitioners told the court that in the wake of their collective decision for the pursuance of the movement "Chaloo Chunaav Laadein', they decided to individually contest the elections against sitting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and others.

The petition said that the aspirants reached the Election Office in Jam Nagar House to file their nomination papers but were asked to come again on January 21 as they could not file the nomination due to a long queue.

According to the petition, it is provided in the election rules that it is mandatory for the Election Officer to receive the nomination papers of the candidate the same day if he reaches the election office within the specified time.

"On January 21, the poll officials exhibited serious prejudice against the petitioners upon the arrival of Arvind Kejriwal, who was taken in with the aid of the police force and the petitioners were forcibly thrashed away," the petition said.

The plea said when the petitioner raised objections, the Election Officers not only completely disregarded the same but also intimated them by the police force deployment.