"Important Matter": Supreme Court Seeks ECI Response On Plea To Ban Political Parties With Religious Names & Symbols

The petition also seeks the strict enforcement of certain provisions of the Representation of People's Act, 1951 which prohibits luring of voters and promoting feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of citizens on the ground of religion.

Stating that the petition is quite important, a Bench of Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli proceeded to post the matter to November 25.

The counsel appearing for the ECI requested the Court to adjourn the hearing today while assuring that the present petition is not being treated as an adversarial litigation.

"Kindly grant us time to file counter. We got to know of notice only last week….We are not treating it as adversarial litigation. We want to see their suggestions."

Hearing this, the Bench said that the ECI should give suggestions apart from the petitioner.

"You are the ECI, you should suggest."

During the hearing, a state-recognized political party from Kerala named Democratic Social Justice Party sought to intervene and assist the court in the matter, which was not entertained by the Bench.

"ECI is there to assist."

During the previous hearing, the Bench had asked for the political parties against which reliefs have been sought to be impleaded in the matter.

As the matter drew to a close today, the counsel for the ECI requested for more time to file the counter, i.e., beyond the time granted by the Court. The Court took this as an opportunity to remind the counsel how the ECI is an agency which is strictly time-bound.

"ECI is time-bound. You conduct elections. Do you give more time for filing nominations?", the bench queried in jest.

The Court had issued notice in the matter in September.

During the previous hearing, Senior Advocate Senior Advocate Gaurav Bhatia, appearing for the petitioner, had submitted that two parties which are recognised state parties have the word "Muslim" in their name. Some parties have crescent moon and stars in their official flags. He said that the petition listed several other parties which have religious names. He also placed reliance on the Supreme Court bench judgment of S. R. Bommai vs Union of India and submitted that, "it was held by this court that Secularism is part of the basic feature".

Case Title: Syed Waseem Rizwi v. ECI And Anr. WP(C) No. 908/2021 PIL

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