NEW DELHI: Rashmi Shyamkumar Barve, a Congress candidate from Ramtek Parliamentary Constituency in Maharashtra, had knocked the doors of the Supreme Court challenging her unlawful deprivarion of her right to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election through arbitrary and illegal actions.
Rashmi had to move to the apex court, following the Bombay HC's order declining to interfere with the cancellation of nomination on the ground that the election program commenced from March 20, 2024, Kaushik Choudhury, her lawyer told The New Indian Express.
So Rashmi had accordingly prayed to the SC to stay the nomination cancellation order and to allow her to contest the election which definitely would uplift the morale of democracy, her plea said.
Initially the district caste certificate scrutiny committee in Maharashtra on March 28 had invalidated the caste certificate of the party’s official candidate from Ramtek (SC) constituency, following which she had to move the HC.
The HC though stayed the Order of the Caste Scrutiny by observing that the petitioner’s caste certificate was rejected in hasty manner which reflects mala fide intent and accordingly stayed the Order of the Caste Scrutiny committee order.
The HC, however, had declined to interfere with the cancellation of nomination of Rashmi on the ground that the election program has commenced from March, 20, 2024, he said.
Choudhury further said that he would likely to mention this matter on Monday on April 8, before the top court's Chief Justice led bench for an urgent listing and hearing of Rashmi's appeal.
Choudhury said, "the democratic process has been blemished by blatant disregard for free and fair election."
The caste scrutiny committee who initially issued caste validity certificate to Rashmi in a surprising turn of event cancelled the caste validity certificate on a frivolous complaint filed by one Vaishali Deviya who has close acquintence with Sunil Salave, the complainant in the case against Rashmi.
"The intent was quite clear that is to reject the nomination of Rashmi for the upcoming election. The cancellation was done in an absolutely hasty manner and the same was strongly observed by the Bombay High Court while passing a stay order in the writ petition filed by Rashmi, Choudhury said.
The HC also had said that the poll process has reached a stage the election symbols have been allotted and given the law once the election process has begun the remedy would be to agitate the issue by filing the election petition.
Aggrieved by the HC order, where Rashmi would be deprived of contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha Election, she had preferred to challenge the HC order before the SC by filing a Special Leave Petition (SLP).
"This ultimately has served the purpose of respondent No.1 and private respondents who succeeded in their ulterior and mala fide motive to stop the petitioner (Rashmi) from contesting the upcoming election," he said in the petition.