Delhi HC junks plea to de-register AIMIM as political party

Asaduddin Owaisi. File Pic

The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea seeking to de-register the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM by the Election Commission of India.

Justice Prateek Jalan dismissed the plea observing it was without any merit.

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The high court further noted the petitioner's arguments amounted to interference with the fundamental rights of the members of AIMIM to constitute themselves as a political party espousing their political beliefs and values.

The petitioner, Tirupati Narasimha Murari, assailed the registration of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalimeen (AIMIM) on the ground that as a political party, its constitution intended to further the cause of only one religious community, i.e., Muslims.

The plea, therefore, argued it was against the principles of secularism which every political party must adhere to under the scheme of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.

Such a consequence, the court said, cannot lightly be countenanced.

The court said AIMIM fulfilled the requirement of Section 29A of the Representation of People Act, which mandated that the constitutional documents of a political party should declare it "bears true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, and to the basic tenets of socialism, secularism, and democracy".

"On the facts of the present case, this requirement has been fulfilled by AIMIM. The petitioner himself has annexed to the writ petition, a letter dated 9.8.1989, submitted by AIMIM in support of its application for registration, stating that its constitution had been amended in terms of Section 29A(5) of the Act," the judge wrote in a verdict passed on November 20.

The judgment subsequently held the plea to be sans merits.

The petitioner filed the petition in 2018 when he was a member of the undivided Shiv Sena. During the course of the hearing in the matter, the court was informed that the petitioner was now a member of the BJP.

In a 17-page judgement, the court observed that subject to the exceptions provided by the Supreme Court, the Election Commission had no power to review its decision to register a political party.

"The argument of (the petitioner) that the aims and objectives of the political party must be critically examined to assess whether it in fact adheres to the principles enumerated in Section 29A(5) of the Act, invites a substantive review of the original decision to register the party. This is exactly what, the Supreme Court has held, cannot be done," it observed.

The judgment went on to note the petitioner's arguments amounted to interference with the fundamental rights of the members of AIMIM to constitute themselves as a political party.

"Such a consequence cannot lightly be countenanced and has been specifically proscribed in the judgments," it added.

While noting the submission of the AIMIM counsel that the petitioner had misread the party's aims and objectives, the court clarified it did not consider it necessary to examine the issue as the relief sought by the petitioner was "beyond the jurisdiction of the ECI".

It also said the provisions of Section 123 (corrupt practices) of the Act were not relevant to the requirements for registration of a political party.

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