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As
EC shies away, ROs hold key to Jayalalitha’s future
B.S. Nagraj
New Delhi,
April 19:
NEXT Tuesday, Returning Officers M. Madhivanam and S. Jaya will
be the most loved or most hated figures in Tamil Nadu depending
on which side of the poliical divide you are on. For, they are the
ones who will decide whether AIADMK chief Jayalalitha can contest
the May 10 Assembly polls from the Krishnagiri and Andipatti constituencies.
The suspense
will continue till then. There are laws aplenty, but no one, not
even Nirvachan Sadan, has so far come out on whether she can contest
or not. While the three wise men in the Election Commission have
refused to be lucid about directions they issued in 1997, the Madras
High Court added its bit to the confusion by responding positively
to Jayalalitha’s plea.
A reading of
the Commission’s instructions to ROs on August 27 1997, make
it clear that the AIADMK leader cannot contest the elections as
they debar a convicted person from contesting elections during pendency
of his or her appeal in a higher court unless the conviction itself
is stayed.
Jayalalitha
has been convicted and sentenced to two and three years’ imprisonment
in two corruption cases. But unfortunately for her only the operation
of the sentence has been stayed while the conviction itself has
not. This makes her ineligible to stand in the elections.
But the Madras
High Court thought otherwise. The court’s logic was that conviction
and sentence are inseparable twins. So if the sentence is suspended,
the conviction too stands stayed.
This order may
have overjoyed Jayalalitha and her supporters who want to see her
installed as the next chief minister. But whether their leader stands
a chance, will remain a mystery till the two ROs scrutinise her
papers on April 24.
The Commission’s
instructions have the backing of various judgments. Does the Representation
of the People Act allow those convicted of certain offences but
on bail to contest polls while their appeals are pending? Courts
which have probed the question have come out with a firm ‘‘no.’’
Be it the Allahabad
High Court which annulled election of a candidate convicted of murder,
or the famous Madhya Pradesh High Court judgment in the case in
which Congressman V.C. Shukla’s election was set aside, the
courts have been consistent.In another case which to the Supreme
Court, it was held that the Himachal High Court had done the right
thing by cancelling election of a person convicted for a criminal
offence.
While scrutinising
the papers, the ROs will be performing a quasi-judicial function
and cannot remain oblivious to the fact that the Commission’s
instructions flow from court pronouncements.
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