Supreme Court Refuses To Stay Kerala HC Proceedings In Petition Challenging Election Of Congress MLA K Babu

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the proceedings in the election petition filed against Congress MLA K Babu pending before the Kerala High Court, challenging his election from the Tripunithura constituency in the 2021 Kerala Legislative Assembly Elections.

The Election Petition in the High Court was filed by CPI (M) leader M Swaraj seeking to declare the election of Babu null and void. The allegation against Babu is that he used corrupt practices that materially affected the result of the election by appealing to Hindu voters based on religion.

Babu had filed a plea before the High Court raising a preliminary objection that the election petition filed by Swaraj suffered from material defects due to non-compliance of the provisions of Section 81,82, 83 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and ought to be rejected. The High Court however decided to proceed with the trial of the election main petition against Babu.

A bench of Justice Bela Trivedi and Justice Aniruddha Bose, while granting leave in the petition filed by Babu challenging the interim order of the Kerala High Court that had rejected the preliminary objections raised by him, made it clear that it is not staying the main proceedings before the High Court.

In its order dated 29th March, the Kerala High Court had refused to entertain the preliminary objection of Babu and decided to proceed with the election petition. It is alleged that Babu distributed slips to Hindu Voters with the picture of Lord Ayyappa with an inscription that said "your vote is for Ayyappa”. 

The preliminary objection raised by Babu before the High Court was that although the election petition was presented within 45 days, the defects in the petition were cured beyond the period of 45 days. For this reason, the petition failed to comply with Section 81,82 and 83 of the RP Act and was liable to be dismissed, it was contended. It was pointed out that sufficient number of copies of the petition were not furnished and the copies were not duly attested to be true copies and the defects were cured only belatedly. The High Court however, found the defects to be trivial and decided to proceed with the petition.

Case Title: K. Babu V. M. Swaraj, SLP (C) No. 15320/2023