New Delhi: The Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear Congress MP Sushmita Dev’s plea seeking action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah for alleged poll code violations.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta, however, gave Dev the liberty to file a fresh plea against various Election Commission (EC) orders rejecting complaints of model code of conduct (MCC) violations by Modi and Shah during campaigning.
The apex court had Monday asked the MP from Silchar to bring on record the EC’s orders giving clean chit to the BJP leaders on several complaints of MCC violations over alleged hate speeches and references to Armed Forces for ‘political propaganda’.
‘Rightly or wrongly’, the poll panel has decided the complaints of MCC violations and these orders warrant filing of a fresh petition, the bench said.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the EC, said the persons who had given representations of MCC violations to the poll panel have not come forward to assail them. Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Dev, said the poll panel had given ‘unreasoned orders’ in dismissing the complaints against Modi and Shah.
The EC has given clean chit to Modi for two of his speeches – one in Latur last month urging first time voters to dedicate their votes in the name of Balakot air strike heroes and soldiers killed in the Pulwama attack, and the other in Wardha, April 1, slamming Congress chief Rahul Gandhi where he had also indicated that Kerala constituency had more voters from the minority community.
Dev had Tuesday claimed before the apex court that the EC has failed to appreciate that the alleged ‘hate speeches’ by Modi and Shah that are ‘corrupt practices’ and promote the feeling of enmity on religious grounds.
In an affidavit, Dev has said that the poll panel has passed orders in a ‘cryptic manner without mentioning any reason whatsoever, in stark violation of the law laid down by this court’ while disposing of some complaints.
Alleging discrimination and arbitrariness on part of the EC, Dev has also said that the poll panel has not initiated action for violation of model code of conduct against Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BSP Supremo Mayawati and BJP leader Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for statements which were similar in ‘tone, tenor, meaning, purport and intention’ to Modi and Shah’s statements.