The Supreme Court on Thursday sought to curb an “attitude” prevalent among elected representatives to take repeated adjournments that delay proceedings for years together till their five-year term comes to a close.
Finding this attitude among the law-makers to be a convenient tool to defeat the democratic process of elections, the Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and PC Pant said, “A voter casts his vote as a responsible citizen to choose the masters for governing the country. That being the trust of the electorate in an elected candidate, when he faces an assail to his election, it should be his sanguine effort to become free from the assail in the election petition and work with attainment and not take shelter seeking adjournments with the elated hope that he can be triumphant in the contest by passage of time.”
The observations came in a case from Manipur where an election petition was pending since 2012 against Congress MlA Mairembam Prithviraj Singh, who won the 2012 Assembly elections from Moirang constituency. In three years, the Manipur High Court had not framed even the charges against the MlA as it took him two years to file his written statements. Besides, at every hearing, the MlA moved a new application to delay the proceedings.
When these facts were brought to the notice of the apex court by the candidate who lost the election, the Bench said, “This kind of attitude has to be curbed from all angles because law does not countenance it.” The court was referring to Section 86 (7) of Representation of Peoples Act 1951, which mandates an election petition to be heard and decided within six months. Noting the enormous delay in the matter, the Bench directed HC to dispose the petition against Manipur MlA by February 2016 end.