Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday sought a response from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to explain the grounds on which it rejected the nomination of a Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) candidate who submitted his papers after 11 am on October 30.
A bench of Justices Arif Doctor and Somsekhar Sundaresan questioned the rationale behind the 11 a.m. deadline. The HC was hearing a petition by Aakifahmed Dafedar, VBA’s candidate from Bandra West constituency. His nomination papers were rejected by the Returning Officer (RO) on the ground that the same were filed after 11 am.
Petitioner’s advocates Sayed Ali Hasan and Imran Ansari argued that Dafedar initially submitted his nomination on October 29, 2024, the last day for filing nominations. However, as his paperwork contained some blanks, he was verbally instructed to resubmit the corrected nomination by 11:45 am on October 30.
However, when Dafedar went to submit the nomination form on October 30 at 11.30 am, the same was rejected as being filed beyond time. ECI’s Advocate, Akshay Shinde, questioned the petition’s maintainability contending that Dafedar should have filed an election petition rather than a writ petition.
Shinde further argued that Dafedar’s nomination was rejected as it was submitted after the commencement of the prescribed scrutiny time — 11 am on October 30. Shinde submitted a copy of the nomination receipt, which clearly stated that scrutiny would begin at 11 am on October 30, implying that the petitioner was fully aware that any valid nomination had to be filed before that time.
ECI further contended that Dafedar’s case was not isolated, as several other nominations across Maharashtra were similarly rejected for being filed after 11 am on October 30.
The bench then asked ECI to file an affidavit saying: “Let a short Affidavit placing the above facts be filed by tomorrow, 5th November 2024, keeping open the Respondents’ objection of maintainability.”
