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Enforcing hartal by coercion illegal, says SC

By T. Padmanabha Rao

NEW DELHI MAY 10. The Supreme Court today upheld the Kerala High Court order that "the enforcement of a `hartal' by force, intimidation — physical or mental — and coercion amounts to an unconstitutional act. A political party has no right to enforce it by resorting to force or intimidation, the court ruled. At the same time, it reversed a conclusion of the High Court which held that the Election Commission (EC) had the power to de-register or cancel the registration of a political party (after giving it an opportunity of hearing) on the ground that it had called for a hartal by force, intimidation and coercion and thereby violated the provisions of the Constitution.

Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, deals with the "registration with the EC of association and bodies as political parties''.

Partly allowing a group of appeals from the Congress, the CPI(M) and the CPI, Justice V.N. Khare, who pronounced the verdict, ruled that "there being no express provision in the 1951 Act or in the `symbols order' to cancel the registration of a political party, no proceeding for de-registration can be taken by the EC against a political party for having violated the terms of Section 29A(5) of the Act'' (dealing with an undertaking in the rules of a political party — bearing faith and allegiance to the Constitution, the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy and upholding the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India).

(The Supreme Court, in its 1998 ruling in Bharat Kumar case held that "there is a distinction between a `bandh' and a `hartal'" and "a call for a bandh involves coercion of others into towing the line of those who called for the bandh and that the act was unconstitutional, since it violated the rights and liberty of other citizens guaranteed under the Constitution.'')

The current bench, which included Justice Ashok Bhan, said that "the EC, while exercising its power to register a political party under Section 29A of the Act, acted quasi-judicially and the decision rendered by it was a quasi-judicial order and once a political party was registered, no power of review having been conferred on the EC, it had no power to review the order registering a political party for having violated the provisions of the Constitution or for having committed breach of undertaking given to the EC at the time of registration.

Dealing, however, with the exceptions where the EC "is not deprived of its power to cancel the registration'' (of a given political party), the bench said that such exceptions were: "where a political party has obtained registration by practising fraud or forgery; where a registered political party amends its nomenclature of association, rules and regulations abrogating therein (the undertaking) conforming to the provisions of Section 29A(5) of the Act or intimating the Election Commission that it has ceased to have faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India or to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy or it would not uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India so as to comply with the provisions of Section 29A(5) of the Act; and any like ground where no enquiry is called for on the part of the Commission.''

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