The Supreme Court today reserved its verdict on the issue of empowering the returning officer to reject the nomination paper of a candidate who provides incomplete information by leaving some columns blank in the document.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam concluded the hearing during which the Election Commission also supported the plea of an NGO that no column should be allowed to be left blank which tantamount to concealing information and not filing the complete affidavit.
However, senior advocate A Mariarputham, appearing for the Centre, said the right to contest election is a statutory one and there is a judgement of the three-judge bench of the apex court that even for concealing the information, the nomination paper cannot be rejected.
He said eligibility and rejection of the nomination of candidates have to be decided in terms of section 36 and other relevant provisions of the Representation of Peoples' Act.
The Election Commission has also taken a stand that the returning officer should be empowered to reject the nomination paper of a candidate who provides incomplete information by leaving some columns blank in the affidavit.
The EC said providing no information and keeping the column blank stands on a different footing by writing either 'nil' or 'not applicable' in nomination papers.
"If a candidate leaves the column blank, the returning officer should be allowed to reject the nomination paper," advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the EC, submitted before the bench, also comprising justices Ranjana Prakash Desai and Ranjan Gogoi.
The court was hearing a PIL filed in 2008 by Resurgence India, a civil rights group, which detected a trend among candidates of leaving blank the columns demanding critical information about them.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said leaving any column blank would mean non-compliance of an apex court judgement.
He said writing 'nil' in the format is permissible though it may be a false declaration which could lead to prosecution.
