The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought to know whether a plea seeking to declare as unconstitutional the proceedings in the Delhi Assembly demonstrating “Electronic Voting Machines [EVM] tampering” is maintainable.
The issue challenging the constitutionality and legality of the proceedings of an Assembly session came up for consideration before a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar, which directed the petitioner to given a brief submission on the maintainability of his public interest litigation.
Mock poll
A special session of the Delhi Assembly on May 9 had seen the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government enacting a dramatic demonstration of “EVM tampering” on the floor of the House.
Conducting a mock poll on an EVM machine in the Assembly, AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj had demonstrated how, despite giving two votes each to various parties, the final count showed that votes of some parties had been transferred to one party.
‘Matter sub judice’
Petitioner advocate Abhishek Aanand Rai sought to declare the discussion and the resolution passed on the issue by the AAP MLAs as “illegal” on the ground that the issue of EVM tampering was pending consideration before the Supreme Court and a sub judice matter should not have been touched in a legislative proceeding.
Written submissions
Delhi government’s Standing Counsel Ramesh Singh raised objection to the maintainability of the plea.
Taking note of it, the Bench directed both the parties to give their written submissions and the case law they will be relying on, for and against the maintanability of the plea.
The matter was fixed for hearing on February 8 next year. Rai alleged that the second part of fifth session of the sixth Legislative Assembly in which an “alleged tampering of EVMs and threat to democracy” was discussed, was violative of the various provisions of the rules.
‘No arguments’
The plea said as per Rules Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi, it mandates that “in order that a resolution may be admissible it shall not contain arguments, inferences and therefore prohibits admissibility of any resolution if it contains arguments and inferences.”
The plea said “the resolutions, one that was moved by Saurabh Bhardwaj with the leave of the House and the amended resolution adopted by voice-vote, both were argumentative and contained inferences.”
