: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to produce before it records and presentations pertaining to the registration of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) as a political party.
The ECI has to produce the records on Wednesday.
A Bench of Justices J. Pradeep Nandrajog and J. Mukta Gupta passed the order while hearing a PIL for de-registration of the SAD as a political party on the grounds that it was a religious organisation and not a secular political party and its registration was in violation of the Representation of People (RP) Act, 1951.
The Bench has sought the information to decide if the registration of parties by the EC was a quasi-judicial or a statutory exercise.
SAD’s senior counsel P. Vishwanatha Shetty contended that the registration was statutory in nature and, therefore, not open to judicial review.
Petitioner Balwant Singh Khera’s counsel Indira Unninayar argued that the ECI’s decision to register a political party under S 29(A)(5) of The Representation of People Act, 1951 is a ‘quasi-judicial one’. In a quasi-judicial decision by a constitutional authority such as the ECI, the court can interfere with a judicial review if the statutory provisions have not been complied with.
The SC had in a judgement in 2002 ruled that the EC had no power to cancel the registration, barring three exceptions, including “fraud” on the part of the body seeking recognition as a political party, Unninayar pleaded.
According to the petitioner, the SAD had secured registration by withholding from the EC its ‘old’ constitution under which only Sikhs were allowed to join the party. The party had aligned itself to Sikhism also by participating in gurdwara elections despite the fact that this was against the existing laws.
“The Shiromani Akali Dal was formed out of the SGPC in the 1920s as a religio-political party, but it has failed to sever its links from Sikhism, and is very closely and publicly aligned with Sikhism even today,” the PIL contended.
Under Section 29(A) of the Act, every political party gives an undertaking to the EC declaring its allegiance to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy to obtain registration.
