MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Wednesday rejected a petition to declare the state assembly elections null and void due to 76 lakh bogus votes allegedly cast after the closing of polls at 6 pm on Nov 20 last year.“There is nothing on record that at any polling station in the state of Maharashtra, any untoward incident or fraud took place. We, hence, fail to discern how, in the absence of any tangible material acceptable in law, which also needs to be booth-wise, there was any fraudulent voting,” said Justices Girish Kulkarni and Arif Doctor.Petitioner Chetan Ahire, a voter from Vikhroli constituency, based his petition on an RTI reply obtained by Delhi resident Venkatesh Nayak from the Election Commission of India that “there is no data available about these votes with the ECI.” Ahire said that these votes cannot be considered in declaring the results.Senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, for the EC, and the Centre’s advocate Uday Warunjikar urged the dismissal of the petition as it amounted to “gross abuse of the process of law.” “We wonder how the petitioner can have a locus standi to seek such wide, sweeping, and drastic reliefs to question the entire elections of the state legislative assembly. It is a relief, too far-fetched, that too on the basis of no cause of action,” the judges noted.They said this is more particularly in the context of the constitutional and statutory bar that no election to either House of a state legislature shall be called into question, except by an election petition. Such a petition is maintainable at the behest of a voter or a contesting candidate. Ahire, “having failed to demonstrate a legal injury, the sequel is automatically the lack of the petitioner’s locus to maintain the writ petition.“The judges viewed Ahire’s advocate Prakash Ambedkar’s submission that the conduct of the poll violated the basic structure of the Constitution and breached Ahire’s fundamental rights as “wholly without foundation”. They said although farcical claims are made on purity of the process of state assembly polls, and more particularly in the context of EVMs and a need to replace them with ballot papers, “such plea of the petitioner appears to be in absolute desperation.” The use of EVMs was held to be legal and valid by SC, the HC said.
