The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved itsorder on a PIL challenging Sachin Tendulkar's nomination to the Rajya Sabha.
A division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and JusticeRajiv Sahai Endlaw reserved the order after hearing arguments from both thesides.
Appearing for Centre, Additional Solicitor General RajeevMehra said Tendulkar's nomination in the Upper House is as per theconstitutional provision which also allows induction of experts from the fieldof sports.
The senior lawyer said the provision under Article 80 of theConstitution is not confined to inducting experts only from the fields ofscience, arts, literature and social services but also from sports, educationand other areas.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by Ram Gopal SinghSisodia, a former Delhi MLA, challenging Tendulkar's nomination alleging thathe does not possess any of the qualifications prescribed under Article 80 ofthe Constitution for being nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
"A bare reading of the article makes it clear that theperson to be nominated should have special knowledge or practical experience inmatters like literature, science, arts and social service, but the expertise sorequired for nomination is not confined to the specific illustrations given inthe article," he said.
In an affidavit to the High Court, the Centre had earliersaid, "The special knowledge and practical experience required for thepurpose is not confined to the said four categories only but would also includecategories like sports, education, law, history, academics attainments,Indology, economics, journalism... or other similar fields of human endeavour."
Appearing for Sisodia, counsel R K Kapoor told the benchthat the Constitution allowed the government to nominate to the Rajya Sabhapersons only from four fields - arts, science, literature and social science,and argued that the nomination of a sports person to the Rajya Sabha wasunconstitutional.