Rajasthan High Court rejects plea to restrain political leaders from entering religious sites during election campaigns

The Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking directions to restrain leaders of political parties from seeking votes in the name of religion, caste, community, language or entering religious sites during election campaigns [Sant Vaidehi Balabh Dev Acharyaji Maharaj v State of Rajasthan]..A bench of Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Sandeep Mehta observed that a similar petition had been filed earlier by the same petitioner and the present petition was a repetition of the earlier one."It is settled law that successive writ petitions for the same cause of action are not maintainable and that filing of second writ petition for the same purpose is an abuse of the process of law," the Court said..In his previous petition, the petitioner Sant Vaidehi Balabh Dev Acharyaji Maharaj had contended that all political parties and the candidates who contest the election can only use their names and identity according to the registration in the electoral roll or the nomination form but the surname and the caste of the candidates should not be published during the election campaign."The candidates and leaders of the political parties may be restrained from visiting the religious places during election campaign," the petitioner had stated in that plea..It was dismissed on October 23, 2018 with the Court observing that, "seeking vote in the name of religion, caste, community, language etc. is statutorily prohibited and, therefore, no general directions in this regard are required.".However, the court had made it clear that specific grievance in this regard, can be appropriately dealt with by the Election Commission in accordance with law.In the present plea, the Court noted that the petitioner did submit some representation to the Election Commission after the first order but nothing concrete happened..With these observations, the bench dismissed the plea with a direction to Chief Election Commission to impartially consider representation, if any, made by the petitioner earlier."In view of the above, we are not inclined to exercise our discretionary jurisdiction in this writ petition and dismiss the writ petition with the directions to the Chief Election Commissioner of India to objectively consider and pass appropriate order on the representation of the petitioner, if any, made in this connection earlier," the Court observed.Petitioner was represented by advocate Moti Singh while respondent was represented by advocates Sudhir Tak, Saransh Vij and Umashankar Dhaka..[Read Order]