The Supreme Court today indicated that it might have to ask the Election Commission to intervene if the present stalemate in the Janata Dal's presidential poll continues. ``We may have to ask the Election Commission to consider what action it proposed to take for non-holding of the presidential elections including derecognition,'' the court observed today.

The observation came from a vacation division bench comprising Justice S C Sen and Justice S P Kurdurkar as a reaction to senior Dal leader and Information Minister Jaipal Reddy's application seeking recall of a June 19 order appointing him as one of a two-member observer team for conducting the poll.

Earlier, senior counsel D D Thakur appearing for Reddy informed the court that he was unable to carry out the task of conducting the poll on personal grounds.

Angered by the move which they termed as ``last minute'' the judges said Reddy appeared to be acting in a very irresponsible manner by seeking to pull out at such a stage when the poll was due to be held by July 3.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.