Poll-Ads Pre-Certification: Madras High Court Asks ECI To Produce Supreme Court Order, Says ECI Can't Pass Orders Limiting HC's Jurisdiction

The bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sathya Narayana Prasad was hearing a plea by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam challenging the 2023 Consolidated guidelines to regulate the advertisements by political parties on television channels and cable networks. The party had also challenged an order of the Chief Electoral Officer confirming the rejection of pre-certificate to the party ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

In the previous hearing, challenging the maintainability of the petitions, the ECI had argued that as per the orders of the Apex Court in Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Gemini TV, an aggrieved party could only approach the Supreme Court against rejection of pre-certificate.

On Wednesday, Shunmugasundaram argued that the 2004 judgment was limited only to that period and order under Article 142 was only for that period. He added that the rule overrides the rules written by the ECI and submitted that the above order, which was an interim order of the Apex Court, would lose value after the final disposal of the case.

The court seemed to agree with this submission and noted that once a case was finally disposed of, the interim orders also had to go. The court then asked the ECI counsel if there was any speaking order in the case and whether a copy of the final order was available.

Though prima facie the court opined that the ECI could not have passed such notifications usurping the court's jurisdiction, the court directed the parties to produce a copy of the final orders by Thursday and adjourned the case.

Case Title: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam v Election Commission of India

Case No: WP No. 10466 of 2024