The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Rajasthan Government’s decision to impose Class VIII grade education as minimum educational qualification to contest sarpanch elections.
Dealing with a bunch of PIls filed by social activist Aruna Roy and several candidates who stood disqualified by this rule, the bench headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu felt that the matter required to be dealt by the Rajasthan High Court, particularly when the High Court had entertained six petitions dealing with the same issue.
Sending the petitioners away to approach the High Court, the Bench also comprising Justices AK Sikri and RK Agarawal said, “The High Court is well equipped to answer this question.” When the petitions were taken up in court, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi presented a list of six petitions being heard on this issue by the Rajasthan HC. He accused the petitioners of hiding this fact from the Court.
The top law officer’s aggressiveness to oppose the petitions was noted even by the Court which took notice of this fact to dismiss the petitions. Senior advocates Raju Ramachandran, Anand Grover and Abhishek Manu Singhvi asked Court to consider the urgency as by this rule, 82 per cent of the State’s population, particularly women, will stand excluded. Moreover, they emphasised that the bar introduced by the State affected the grass root tier of democracy, the correctness of which should be called upon by the highest court of the land.
As an alternate relief, the petitioners urged the court to extend the deadline of filing nominations which expires Tuesday. But the Bench refused to alter the poll schedule. The sarpanch polls are slated for January 16 while results will be declared on February 5.