Allahabad High Court Dismisses Plea Questioning Continuance Of Yogi Adityanath As UP CM, Imposes ₹11K Cost

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea questioning continuance of Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of State of Uttar Pradesh. The Cout also imposed ₹11K costs on the petitioner, Dr. M. Ismail Faruqui for filing a 'misconceived' and 'frivolous' petition.

The bench of Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi and Justice Om Prakash Shukla also slammed the petitioner for filing the instant petition despite the fact that an identical petition filed by him was dismissed by the Court as withdrawn in August this year.

"The courts have also from time to time held that no litigant has a right to unlimited draught on the court time and public money in order to get his affairs settled in a manner as he wishes. Easy access to justice should not be misused as a licence to file misconceived and frivolous petitions...since valuable time has been spent by this court on atleast two occasions, therefore this court finds it appropriate to impose an exemplary cost of Rs. 11,000/- on the petitioner, which shall be paid to State legal Services Authority Within four weeks from today," the Court ordered. 

The case in brief

Essentially, it was the case of the petitioner that since the affidavit filed by Yogi Adityanath before contesting elections was not as per the provisions of Rule 4 A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, therefore, his election as an MLA was not legal, and consequently, even if he had been appointed as a CM, his continuation cannot be confirmed as per law in view of Article 164(4) of the Constitution of India, which prescribes that a Minister who for any period of six consecutive months is not a member of the Legislature of the State shall at the expiration of that period cease to be a Minister.

The petitioner alleged that since his affidavit was not proper, therefore, his election as an MLA was not legal, and since 6 months period [as per Article 164(4) of the Constitution of India] expired on September 25, 2022, therefore, he was not eligible to remain the CM of the state.

Court's observations

At the outset, the Court noted that under the garb of filing a writ petition, the Petitioner had actually challenged the election of Yogi Adityanath from 322 - Gorakhpur Urban Legislative Assembly.

The Court further noted that a challenge to the election can be made only by filing an Election Petition before the High court as per the conditions provided in the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 and since the Petitioner was neither an Elector nor a candidate at the election of the constituency in question, therefore, the petitioner does not have any locus for filing the present petition.

"The present petition is also liable to be rejected in as much as the Petitioner does not have any locus for filing the present petition. As to who can prefer an Election Petition, section 81 of the Representation of People Act, 1950 provides that an Election Petition may be presented by (a) any elector or; (b) any candidate at such election. Further the explanation to section 81 provides that an elector means a person who was entitled to vote at the election to which the Election Petition relates. In the present case, the Petitioner has admitted that he is not an elector registered in the 322 – Gorakhpur Urban Legislative Assembly. Therefore, this court finds that the petitioner does not have any locus for filing the present writ petition," the Court remarked.

In this regard, the Court also relied upon Apex Court's ruling in the case of Tej Bahadur vs. Narendra Modi (2020) SCC Online SC 951, wherein the Hon'ble Apex court held that the locus for filing an Election Petition depends entirely on the question whether a particular person is an elector of the constituency or is a candidate or can claim to be a duly nominated candidate. With this, the petition was dismissed.

Case title - Dr. M Ismail Faruqui v. Shri Adityanath [WRIT - C No. - 7524 of 2022]

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AB) 492

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