Kerala HC dismisses NDA candidates' petitions challenging rejection of election nominations

Kochi: The rejection of nominations of three BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidates for Kerala Assembly polls has become final as the Kerala High Court decided against the candidate's plea challenging the Election Commission decision taken on Saturday.

The Kerala High Court on Monday dismissed the petitions filed by three candidates of the National Democratic Alliance(NDA) challenging the rejection of their election nominations for the upcoming assembly elections in the state

A single bench of Justice N Nagersh dismissed the writ petitions filed by BJP candidates N Haridas and Nivedida Subramaniam, and AIADMK candidate RM Dhanalakshmi, whose nominations to contest from Thalassery, Guravayoor and Devikulam constituencies respectively were rejected on the ground that the forms submitted by them did not have the signature of party president in Form A and B appended to the nomination.

However, the candidates approached the High Court which held a rare urgent holiday sitting on Sunday at 2 pm. The bench of Justice N Nagaresh after preliminary hearing, adjourned the case for Monday and in the meantime asked for Election Commission's view on the matter too.

The Commission through an affidavit pleaded that the three petitions should be rejected, courts could not interfere with its functions during the process upto the election, and that the decisions of the Presiding Office was final.

On Monday, the BJP candidate of Guruvayoor Niveditha Subramaniam argued that the Election Commission was applying different yardsticks in different constituencies, and cited the example of Piravom where the Samajwadi Party candidate Robin Mathew was allowed time till Monday morning to submit Form A and B attached to the nomination.

The counsel for the candidate in Thalassery N Haridas also alleged that different criteria were being used in different constituencies

In Thalassery, the BJP had added worries, as the nomination of the party dummy candidate K Lijesh was also rejected on the same grounds of having no party chief's signature, thus leaving the party with no candidate in the constituency - where the BJP pinned hopes on polling a sizeable percentage of votes and where the party's V K Sajeevan had managed to secure 22,125 votes in the 2016 elections.

During the hearing, the state attorney also intervened to say that the forms had to carry the original signatures of party officials and the Thalassery candidate had made good the deficiency before the scrutiny of nominations.

The court decided in favour of the contention that once the process is set in motion with election notification, the courts could not interfere, and disputes if any could be brought up before courts post-election.