Take appropriate action as per findings of probe into charges against AAP: HC
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is accused of claiming welfare schemes would be withdrawn if it did not return to power in spam calls made for votes ahead of the February 5 assembly polls
The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take appropriate action as per the findings of an inquiry into allegations that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed welfare schemes would be withdrawn if it did not return to power in spam calls made for votes ahead of the February 5 assembly polls.
A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela cited the Constitution’s Article 324 mandating the ECI to ensure free and fair elections and added the constitutional authority is duty-bound to take proactive steps against the circulation of messages with the potential to vitiate the conduct of elections. It said taking every step to ensure free and fair elections was the ECI’s primary constitutional duty under Article 324. The court said it thus becomes the duty of the ECI to take proactive steps.
ECI’s lawyer Siddhant Kumar said the poll body had taken cognisance of advocate Dhrone Diwan’s complaint in the matter. He added the ECI would take appropriate action, including initiation of criminal prosecution, based on the inquiry report.
The court disposed of Diwan’s plea taking note of the action ECI has proposed hoping action will be taken to ensure that political parties and the candidates do not use any vitiating material during their election campaign.
The court turned down Diwan’s plea for postponing the elections, saying such prayers amid the polls can be granted. It added no such grounds are available in the writ for the grant of such prayer.
In his plea, Diwan sought directions to the ECI to act against AAP. He argued dissemination of malicious material including “such calls” was instilling fear in the people’s minds and vitiating the free and fair elections.
The plea said “such calls” were “barring the public” from choosing their representatives in the most democratic form by coercing them to vote in AAP’s favour. “The dissemination of such vilified material has prejudiced not only the rights of political parties but has also prejudiced the right of the public, barring them from choosing their representative in the most democratic form,” the plea said.
The plea added such calls created bias in favour of a political party and violated the fundamental right to equality under the Constitution.
