Bombay High Court Questions ECI's Decision To Reject Nomination Papers Of Candidates Across State For Being Filed After 11 AM

The Bombay High Court on Monday sought to know from the Election Commission of India (ECI) as to on what grounds it rejected the nominations of various candidates across Maharashtra, who filed their papers after 11 AM of October 30 for the upcoming State Assembly Elections.

A vacation bench of Justices Arif Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan also ordered the ECI to furnish a list of candidates' across the State, whose nominations were rejected for filing their papers after 11 AM.

Notably, October 30, was the last day to file the nomination papers.

A candidate from the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) had moved the HC after his nomination papers from the Bandra West constituency were rejected by the Returning Officer (RO) on the ground that the same were filed after 11 AM.

The candidate, argued that the ECI cannot reject papers merely because the same were filed after 11 AM. The candidate argued that the nomination papers must be accepted within the working hours period, and that there is no basis for fixing 11 AM as a deadline.

In its defense, the ECI through Advocate Akshay Shinde, pointed out that there was a standing order by the Election Commissioner to commence scrutiny of the nomination papers from 11 AM onwards and thus, it rejected the papers filed beyond the said time frame.

The bench while hearing the case, questioned the ECI for its decision to reject every nomination filed after 11 AM.

"We want to know how you came across this 11 AM deadline? Why couldn't the deadline be something like 12 or even 1? The working hours start from 11, so why keep that deadline?" the judges said.

Shinde further clarified that the petitioner before the bench, had not filled in the requisite information such as "criminal antecedents" and "financial details."

The bench, pointed out that if such material aspects are not filled, the same can be considered as good as not filed at all.

"We will give that finding too. But before that we need to know why this 11 AM only? Why couldn't it be 12 or even 1? Why the beginning of working hours? Why not till the entire working hours for the day? File an affidavit tomorrow itself," the judges told Shinde.

Meanwhile, another candidate, whose nomination form was rejected by the Bhiwandi Constituency on a similar ground, mentioned his matter before the judges. They said they will hear the same along with the Bandra one on Tuesday.