Supreme Court refuses relief to YSR Congress party in plea against new postal ballot norms

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to grant any relief to the YSR Congress Party on its plea challenging new rules for counting of postal ballot votes in Andhra Pradesh. .The Bench of Justices Arvind Kumar and Sandeep Mehta opined that there was no need to interfere with the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s decision to decline relief to the political party since an election petition could be filed in the matter."In the facts and circumstances of this case, we refuse to interfere," the Supreme Court said today. .The YSR Congress Party moved the Court challenging the validity of relaxed norms to recognise the counting of postal ballots in Andhra Pradesh.The party stated that the Election Commission of India (ECI) relaxed the norms in the State.Specifically, the mandatory requirement of name and designation of the attesting officer to be mentioned in Form 13A as per the Rules was dispensed with. After the relaxation, only the specimen signatures of all such officers is required.The same was done for the sole purpose of validating postal ballots that do not adhere to the mandatory requirement of law, the political party claimed..The party had first approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court with its grievance.However, the High Court on June 1 declined to grant any relief to the party and asked it to file an election petition instead of pursuing a remedy under writ jurisdiction."The writ plea is disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to pursue remedies in a properly framed election petition," the High Court said.The party then filed an appeal before the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court's decision.However, after the matter was mentioned today, the top court made it clear that it would not interfere. .Senior Counsel Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for the YSR Congress.