EC seeks permission to hold LS by-elections

New Delhi, July 3: The Election Commission today sought permission from the Supreme Court for holding by-elections to ten Lok Sabha seats which had fallen vacant due to expulsion of eleven members of Parliament including one Rajya Sabha member, in the cash-for-query scam.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabarwal, Justice C K Thakker and Justice P K Balasubramanian directed the petitioner to file their replies and adjourned the matter to the first week of August.

Counsel for the Election Comission submitted before the court that the election to the ten Lok Sabha seats are to be held within six months and the statutory period was going to expire soon.

It may be noted here that the Supreme Court had earlier directed the EC not to hold by-elections without prior permission of the court.

Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee in his order dated December 23, 2005 had disqualified ten members of the Lok Sabha belonging to different political parties after they were caught accepting bribe for raising questions in Parliament during a sting operation carried out by a news channel.

The petitioner has said that there was no provision for the expulsion of a sitting MP in the constitution of India and hence the impugned order of the speaker was unconstitutional and should, therefore, be set aside.

The Lok Sabha speaker had taken a stand that the action of the speaker cannot be challenged in the court and had refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the court.

The Chief Justice has already referred the matter to a five judge constitution bench on the grounds that important question of law of wide public importance was involved in the petition.

The expelled MPs included Raja Ram Pal, Suresh Chandel, Pradeep Gandhi, Yaswant Giridhar Mahajan, Anna Saheb MK Patil, Chandra Pratap Singh, Manoj Kumar, Ram Sevak Singh and Lal Chadra Koal.

Earlier all the petitions pending in Delhi High court were transferred to this court.

UNI