the Hon’ble Madras High Court’s first bench continued its Marathon Hearing for the 5th day on the writ petition filed challenging the one shot delisting of 474 political parties by the Election Commission of India where the Hon’ble First Bench reserved the matter for interim order.

Today (29-01-2025), the Hon’ble Madras High Court’s first bench continued its Marathon Hearing for the 5th day on the writ petition filed challenging the one shot delisting of 474 political parties by the Election Commission of India where the Hon’ble First Bench reserved the matter for interim order.

The matter was posted today for rebuttals over the submissions made by Senior Advocate Mr G Rajagopal appearing for the Election Commission of India. Senior Counsel Mr P Wilson appearing for one of the political party continued his rebuttals made on the previous hearing (28-01-2025) focusing upon the powers of the Election commission to delist a political party when such power was not granted to them by the Statute.

Senior Advocate, Mr S Prabakaran appearing for another political party rebutted to the submissions of learned Senior Counsel G Rajagopal on the ground that Article 324 of the Constitution only grants the Election Commission the power to conduct election in a free, fair and transparent manner and the same cannot be used in an arbitrary manner and that Article 324 cannot be used over and above article 327 which grants powers only to the Parliament to make legislation with regard to elections and that Article 324 cannot be used to give themselves powers that the Parliament has deliberately omitted to the Election Commission. Senior Counsel further submitted that all these submissions by the Election Commission has been newly made before this Hon’ble Court whereas the impugned order is silent on all such aspects and had not made any observation in the impugned order regarding to the representation made to the election commission and thus the order was passed arbitrarily without any application of mind.

Senior Advocate Mr N L Raja also appearing for another petitioner in the batch case made his rebuttals by placing reliance upon a judgement of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court questioning the validity and authority that a guideline would posses.

The Hon’ble Chief Justice of Madras High Court after an extensive hearing for 5 straight days reserved the matter for interim order