PIL challenging ECI restrictions: Next hearing on Monday

Ahmedabad, 22 October 2012

An NGO, Bhagyoday Jan Parishad, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Gujarat High Court challenging the manner in which authorities of the Election Commission or acting under it are misusing powers under the Code of Conduct and other EC guidelines in Gujarat. Such misuse, according to the Parishad, is “causing greater inconvenience to the public at large”.

The main three areas which is causing inconvenience pertain to carrying of cash beyond the prescribed limit and seizure of same by authorities despite detailed explanations, offering prayers in the form of aarti to Goddess in the days of Navratri festival and imposition of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (pertaining to prohibition of gathering of more than certain number of people at public places).

The first hearing took place earlier today. Senior advocate Bhaskar Tanna who is appearing on behalf of the Parishad argued that the imposition of restrictions on carrying cash is premature given that the candidates have not even been finalized and, therefore, the possibility of voters being bribed almost two months prior to the voting day without any certainty as to the constituency candidates seems far-fetched. Secondly, under the EC guidelines on Election Expenditure Monitoring, the fact that the surveillance teams of EC can arbitrarily search and seize cash and, if it thinks that this money is not for political purposes, report to the Income Tax authorities results in a lack of due process violating the rights of ordinary public carrying cash for legitimate business or other purposes. Thirdly, the Election Expenditure Monitoring guidelines require that the whole event of checking and seizure is to be videographed by a video team. Mr. Tanna argued that there is no evidence that videographing has been done at all in any of the cases of cash seizure so far.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties has filed an application to intervene in this matter. Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry has filed a separate PIL against the Election Commission on the same issue which is likely to be heard together with Parishad’s petition in the next hearing.

The next hearing is on Monday in which the Gujarat HC is likely to decide the fate of these applications and petitions given the urgency of these issues.