Court asks JD national executive to decide date, venue of presidential poll

The Delhi high court, on Tuesday, directed the Janata Dal national executive to decide the fresh date and venue for conducting the party presidential election.

Setting aside the June 7 order of the single judge bench, the court ruled that the election process must be completed by June 15.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court deferred to June 19 the hearing of a special leave petition challenging two orders of the Delhi high court relating to the Janata Dal presidential elections scheduled for Wednesday.

The hearing was postponed by a vacation bench comprising Justice S C Sen and Justice S P Kurdurkar when the apex court was informed that the high court was going to pronounce its final judgment in the case later on Wednesday.

The two-judge division bench of the Delhi high court, consisting of Justice Anil Dev Singh and Justice Cyriac Joseph, also vacated the appointment of retired Rajasthan high court judge N C Kochar as observer for the party presidential polls.

The bench directed party president Laloo Prasad Yadav and working president Sharad Yadav to convene the national executive within two weeks. During this period, the national executive should take a decision on the issues of the new date, the new venue, the choice of returning officers and the validity of the voters's list, the judges ruled.

They said that if the national executive failed to discharge its duty during the 15 days, it would be left to the present JD returning officer and assistant returning officer to conduct the election by July 15.

The court ruled that the validity of the organisational election already held will not be affected. It asked the national executive to go through the complaints of irregularities in the voters's list and rectify it. The decision taken on the nomination of 53 persons to the national council by Laloo Yadav should also be taken by the JD's highest policy-making body, it ruled.

The national executive will also go into the validity of P K Samantray and B K Prasad, operating as the national returning officer and assistant returning officer respectively, as there was no provision in the party constitution for the posts, the court ruled.

Setting aside the order of the single-judge vacation bench of Justice S N Kapoor, the division bench observed, "The judiciary should not be used for resolving political crises at a time when the court is overworked."

Laloo Prasad Yadav's letter dated May 29, fixing Patna as the venue of the party presidential election, will not be operative as he was himself a candidate and hence seized the right to do so, the bench said, adding that the national executive could also decide on whether to hold the election at one or several places.