Laloo makes legal move to check Samantray

Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav moved the Delhi high court on Tuesday, seeking that the May 31order restraining him from interfering in the party election be vacated.

Laloo Yadav contended in his application that JD general secretary and returning officer for the JD presidential poll P K Samantray and Dal national secretary and assistant returning officer B K Prasad had ''suppressed certain material facts from the court'' while securing an order against him last Saturday.

The 100-odd page application filed on Tuesday afternoon through senior counsel Geetanjali Mohan will come up for hearing before vacation judge S N Kapoor on Wednesday.

Laloo Yadav contended that Samantray had not informed the court that his September 1996 appointment as returning officer by working president Sharad Yadav had not been ratified either by the party president or the national executive.

Contending that the appointment order was ''illegal'' and ''bad in law'', he submitted that Samantray had no authority to oversee the June 10 presidential poll.

Similarly, the appointment of B K Prasad as assistant returning officer by Samantray was also unauthorised and illegal, he added.

Laloo Yadav further averred that there could be no legal bar on the party president from guiding the election process even though he was a candidate.

''Mr Samantray has no right, power or authority to hold the elections as the returning officer,'' he contended, and prayed that the court vacate the May 31 restraint order.

The order, passed at a special hearing at the home of Justice J B Goel, had held that Laloo Yadav had no special power to conduct the organisational elections once he had filed his nomination as a candidate. Justice Goel had also restrained him from interfering in the election process and had directed that neither Yadav nor any of his agents or associates should ''threaten or coerce'' the two returning officers.

Samantray and Prasad had moved the high court after the JD party chief issued a show-cause notice to Samantray for overturning his decision to hold the June 10 presidential poll in Patna. Samantray had also objected to the party chief's move to include names of 53 ''nominated members'' in the final national council list.

Claiming the party chief's actions amounted to "undue interference in the poll process," the two returning officers also alleged that they had been ''harassed, threatened and humiliated'' at a meeting with him last week.

They claimed they had no option but to move the court as they feared Yadav would expel them from their posts.

Justice Goel had also issued notice to Laloo Yadav, national general secretary Bapu Kaldate and the chief election officer to show cause by June 6 why the returning officers's suit seeking permanent injunction should not be admitted.