HC sets aside EC decision on bypoll in Katol Assembly seat

The Bombay High Court Friday quashed and set aside ECI's decision to hold bypoll for the Katol Assembly seat, terming it "arbitrary, discriminatory and unreasonable".

The bypoll was necessitated as MLA Ashish Deshmukh had resigned from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on October 3, 2018.

A division bench of Justices S B Shukre and Pushpa Ganediwala was hearing a petition filed by Sandeep Sarode, chairman of the Katol Panchayat Samiti through his counsel Shreerang Bhandarkar.

The petition said Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act 1951 mandates the Election Commission of India (ECI) to fill casual vacancies in the Houses of Parliament and State Legislatures through bypolls within six months from the date of occurrence of the vacancy, provided the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is one year or more.

However, the petition stated that the six-month period since Deshmukh's resignation ends on April 3, 2019 and the bypoll is being held after that.

Moreover, the petition contended that the MLA elected through the bypoll would have a term of just a few months since Maharashtra is scheduled to have assembly elections later in the year.

The petition claimed that holding the bypoll would entail loss of public money under "unnecessary and unwanted" circumstances.

"We find that the impugned decision taken in the present case by the ECI is violative of principle of rule of law on the additional ground of non application of mind," the court said.

"The discussion made thus far would impel us to say that the impugned decision of the ECI is arbitrary, discriminatory and unreasonable, which together agitate against the principle of rule of law," it said.