The Jharkhand High Court, while hearing the petition filed by former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi seeking adjournment of Rajya Sabha elections to be held on June 11, asked to explain how situation this time was different from last year when order of July 1, 2015 was passed by this court. A Single bench comprising Justice Anand Sen, however, verbally observed that the elections could not be deferred in any case.
“The court wanted to know the difference between the situation during the current RS elections and the one held last year when the orders of July 1, 2015 was passed in this connection. If there is any...they will have to explain it before the court,” said Vidhan Sabha Advocate Vinod Sahu.
Marandi has been asked to file an affidavit in this regard and the matter was listed for Friday.
Election Commission of India counsel Advocate AK Singh, on the other hand, submitted that the ECI was of the view that elections cannot be deferred in any case as once the notification was issued, the power of postponement lies with the Returning Officer only.
Senior advocate Rajiv Ranjan, appearing on behalf of six MlAs who turned their sides towards BJP, argued that there was no difference between the situations as number of MlAs still remains the same what it was a year back. The court asked him to put everything on record.
“ECI’s stand was that the elections could never be deferred on the basis of the provisions of Section 329(B) of the Constitution of India against which I made a submission that let them file an affidavit....we will also file our affidavit on the basis of which arguments could be done in the court and the matter could be decided then and there. The matter has been fixed for Friday,” said Marandi’s Counsel RN Sahay.
“Arguments will take place only on the issue that elections could not be deferred in the light of Article 329 (B) of the Constitution,” Sahay added. Marandi alleged that the list of MlAs prepared by the Assembly was incongruent with that the list available with the ECI. He has demanded rescheduling of RS elections till the fate of 6 MlAs, who changed their sides to the BJP after 2014 Assembly elections, was decided by the Speaker.
Notably, the Speaker in its order of February 12, 2015 said that the six MlAs who defected from JVM (P) will be considered as BJP MlAs till further orders are passed as prima facie it appears to be a matter of sub-para (2) of para (4) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
Sahay further claimed that it was beyond jurisdiction of Jharkhand Assembly Speaker to pass such an interim order of merging the defected MlAs with BJP. Moreover, Marandi had also opposed the list of MlAs prepared by the Assembly Secretariat on June 24 last year, which was totally different from the list prepared by the Election Commission of India.
The six MlAs -- Navin Jaiswal, Amar Kumar Bauri, Ganesh Ganjhu, Alok Chaurasia, Janki Prasad Yadav and Randhir Singh, after getting elected on JVM tickets had officially joined BJP on February 11, taking its tally in the 81-member state assembly to 43. The ruling alliance currently has 47 legislators in the House, including four MlAs of AJSU Party, oldest pre-poll alliance partner of BJP in the state.