Allahabad High Court dismisses plea challenging continuance of Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh CM; imposes ₹11k costs

The Allahabad High Court recently dismissed a petition challenging the continuance of Yogi Adityanath as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh while imposing costs of ₹11,000 on the petitioner. [Dr M Ismail Faruqui v Adityanath].While holding that the petitioner had no authority to file the plea, a Bench of Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi and Justice Om Prakash Shukla stated in its order,"The courts have also from time to time held that no litigant has a right to unlimited draught on the court time and public money in order to get his affairs settled in a manner as he wishes. Easy access to justice should not be misused as a licence to file misconceived and frivolous petitions...The court cannot be oblivious to the fact that today people rush to Courts to file cases in profusion under this attractive name of public interest.".The petitioner alleged that CM Yogi was not qualified to contest the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections due to violation of Rule 4A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. As per this provision, a candidate contesting elections is required to submit an affidavit stating that he has not been convicted of an offence, along with his nomination papers.It was also claimed that since the CM's affidavit was not proper, his election as a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) was not legal. Article 164(4) of the Constitution provides that a minister of a State who is not an MLA for a period of six months will cease to be a minister. This six-month period, the petitioner pointed out, expired on September 25, 2022.Thus, it was prayed that a writ of quo warranto be issued against Yogi Adityanath to stop his continuance as Chief Minister of the State with effect from September 25..The Court, however, found the plea to be very amusing, as a similar plea filed by the petitioner was dismissed as withdrawn in August this year.On the reasons why the petitioner felt Adityanath could not continue in office, the Court noted,"In the first blush, the argument of the petitioner seems to be very attractive, but on a deep enquiry it is apparent that the petitioner is drawing the aforesaid analogy by presuming that the election of the Respondent is not proper. The petitioner besides drawing attention of this court to the affidavit filed by the respondent in terms of Rule 4A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 has not been able to show a single document which would show that the election of the respondent has been found by any competent authority to be not proper.".Noting that the petitioner had no locus to file the present plea, the Court clarified that a challenge to an election can be made only by filing an election petition as per the conditions provided in the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951."In fact the Petitioner by filing the present Writ Petition is trying to do something indirectly which the law prohibits him to do directly," the Court went on to note.It further stated that only an elector of the constituency or a duly nominated candidate had the locus to file such election petitions."The Petitioner fails to fall in any of the category to make the present petition maintainable.".Since valuable time has been spent by the High Court in entertaining such petitions on at least two occasions, the Court imposed costs of ₹11,000 on the petitioner, which shall be paid to the State Legal Services Authority..[Read Order]