Bombay High Court directs Election Commission to hold by-election to Pune Lok Sabha seat

The Bombay High Court today directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to immediately conduct by-election to the Pune Lok Sabha constituency which has been vacant since March 29, 2023, after the death of Member of Parliament Girish Bapat [Sughosh Joshi v. Election Commission of India & Ors]..A division bench of Justices GS Patel and Kamal Khata quashed and set aside a certificate issued by the ECI which stated that by-elections will not be held. “We find it unthinkable that several months could go pass and the entire constituency be told that now time has not remained and constituency might as well wait for next general elections. We cannot possibly accept or contemplate this,” the bench held..It added that it was the duty of the ECI to ensure that when a Lok Sabha seat is empty, it is filled within a prescribed period so that constituencies do not remain unrepresented.“Constituencies cannot remain unrepresented beyond a defined period. In any parliamentary democracy, the government is elected representatives who are the voice of the people. If a representative is no more, another must be put in place. The people cannot go unrepresented. That is wholly unconstitutional and is fundamental anathema to our constitutional structure,” the Court recorded in its order..The petitioner, Sughosh Joshi, a registered voter in Pune constituency, challenged the ECI certificate of August 23 purportedly under the Section 151A of the Representation of People’s Act which stated that ECI cannot hold by-election..Advocate Kushal Mor appearing for Joshi, claimed that once a seat becomes vacant, election has to be notified and held within a time frame.He explained that as per provisions of the RP Act, if the term of vacancy of the office is less than a year from the onset of vacancy, an election need not be called..ECI submitted that the whole of its machinery has been far too busy since March 2023 to prepare for the upcoming general elections of 2024.The court did not find this to be a genuine difficulty.“The word difficulty in the law cannot be read in this manner to mean some administrative inconvenience no amount of administrative inconvenience can undermine the statutory obligation to hold an election. In this case asking the writ court to accept the difficulty is wholly unreasonable. It is also inconsistent with what ECI itself has done so. Business of ECI staff cannot result in citizens going unrepresented and that is unthinkable and it would amount to sabotaging entire constitutional framework, which we trust that is what even ECI did not want," the Court held..In view of these observations, it allowed the petition filed by Joshi and directed the ECI to immediately hold by-elections to the vacant constituency.