Only grievance appears to be that nominees are BJP members: Madras High Court dismisses PIL against nomination of three Puducherry MLAs

The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the Centre’s May 10 nomination of three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members as members of the Puducherry Legislative Assembly (GA Jagannathan v. Union of India and ors)..A Bench of Justices Dr Anita Sumanth and Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy found that no case whatsoever has been made out for interference in the nominations of K Venkatesan, VP Ramalingam and RV Ashok Babu as members of the legislative assembly (MLAs)..In the course of its order, the Court observed that,“At the risk of repetition, we may state that the only grievance of the petitioner appears to be the nominees are members of the BJP. This can hardly be a relevant consideration… “.The Court added:The scope of judicial review in such matters are extremely limited. No ground has been raised alleging that the three nominated MLAs had attracted any statutory disqualifications Section 3(3) of the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 lays down criteria that could disqualify a person from being nominated as an MLA. This provision only states that nominees cannot be persons who are serving under the government. The three nominated MLAs, in this case, does not incur such disqualification. Section 14 of the 1963 Act lays down that persons holding an office of profit in the State or Central government are disqualified from being MLAs. Further persons disqualified as per Article 102 of the Constitution would also be barred from being appointed MLAs. Article 102 disqualifies persons who are unsound of mind, not a citizen of India, undischarged insolvents etc. No disqualification under these provisions have been attracted either by the three nominated MLAs. Whereas one of the nominated MLAs, K Venkatesan, was alleged to have been charged with a ‘criminal offences of a heinous nature’, the details of charge have not been made available and there is no allegation of a conviction. The only allegation made against the other two nominated MLAs is that they are members of the BJP. This would hardly be a relevant consideration, the Court said..Petitioner, G A Jagannathan, who earlier held the post of President of the Karikalampakkam Village, Puducherry, had also raised a grievance that the three nominated MLAs were not eminent people to be nominated to the Legislative Assembly..The Court, however, noted that no such requirement has been specified when it comes to the nomination of MLAs in Puducherry, although such criteria may have been laid down for the nomination of members to the Rajya Sabha under Article 80 of the Constitution..Moreover, the Court also drew a distinction between the “eligibility” of a prospective nominated MLA and the “suitability” of the nominee. The Court clarified that the eligibility criteria relates to the legal provisions concerning whether a persons is disqualified or not from holding the post. No such eligibility criterion was found to have been violated in this case..On the other hand, the suitability of the candidate is a more subjective aspect. Pertinently, the Court emphasised,“… unless the allegation of unsuitability goes to the very fundamentals of the matter and the candidate nominated is shown to be ex-facie and patently unsuitable, such that his/her nomination would rebel against one’s conscience, the question of the Court reviewing the suitability of a candidate does not arise.”.Another ground raised was over the undue haste within which the three MLAs were nominated, at a time when the swearing in of the Puducherry cabinet was delayed on account of the the newly elected Chief Minister (of the NR Congress Party) testing positive for COVID – 19..The Court observed that although the cabinet had not been sworn in at the time of filing the petition or when the Bench had heard the matter, the ministers were later sworn in on May 26..The Court added that the contentions regarding the haste in nominating the MLAs is more a challenge to propriety rather than one of law..“In law, we do not find any specification in the statute stipulating the timing of the nomination and the candidates, once nominated, would take their seats in the Legislative Assembly as and when the Assembly is sworn-in. On all fronts therefore, we find no merit in this Writ Petition and dismiss the same”, the Court held..Accordingly, the petition was dismissed. Whereas the petitioner also urged the Court to rehear the case before the order was pronounced on Wednesday, the Bench rejected the request..“When the matter was listed today, we specifically and repeatedly asked the learned counsel for the petitioner as to whether he wants further opportunity to put forth his submissions. However, the learned counsel for the petitioner would reiterate the averments made originally, to the effect that the private respondents arrayed in the Writ Petition did not have the necessary credentials for the nomination under Section 3(3) of the 1963 Act. He would state that he had nothing further to add”, the Court observed..Advocate N Gnanasekar appeared for the petitioner. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General R Sankaranarayanan, assisted by Senior Panel Counsel, V Chandrasekaran appeared for the Union of India..Special Government Pleader N Mala represented the Puducherry government. Advocates V Raghavachari, VP Ramalingam and Aravindh appeared for the nominated MLAs..[Read the Order]