GEETA KUMARI Vs. ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel for the respondents.

(2.) The present writ petition has been filed for the following reliefs -

(3.) Learned Senior Counsel Mr. Yogesh Chandra Verma appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits that through inadvertence and under confusion, 8 of the 10 of the proposers did not sign the nomination paper. The Returning Officer, on scrutinizing the nomination paper on 20.04.2019, rejected the nomination paper of the petitioner on the aforesaid ground and such proposers were not permitted by the Returning Officer to make their signatures. It is submitted that an opportunity ought to have been granted to remove the defect which was not of substantive nature and failure in that regard renders the action of the Returning Officer arbitrary and illegal. Reliance has been placed on paragraph-35 of the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court rendered in Mohinder Singh Gill and another Vs. The Chief Election Commissioner, New Delhi and others, AIR 1978 Supreme Court 851, to submit that the jurisdiction of the Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is not completely ousted if the act challenged is either unrelated to or thwarts or taints the course of the election. Reference has also been invited to the order dated 16.03.2001 passed in C.W.J.C. No. 3121 of 2001 (Chaturanan Yadav Vs. The State of Bihar and Ors.) to persuade this Court to remand the matter to the Returning Officer in view of the following observations in the said order -