NEW DELHI:
Supreme Court
on Friday refused to entertain a
PIL
for directions to Election Commission to take steps to solve the issue of
namesakes
,
imposters
and
duplicate candidates
in elections. A bench of Justices B R Gavai, S C Sharma and Sandeep Mehta said people could not be barred from contesting elections just because of similarity of names.
The PIL, filed by advocate V K Biju on behalf of Sabu Stephen, said EC must treat the subterfuge of putting up namesakes to draw away votes which may have headed the rival’s way as a corrupt electoral practice.
He cited three instances from Kerala. In 2009, one Satheeshan Pacheni lost polls by 1,820 votes while his namesake candidate polled 5,478 votes. “They are getting sponsorships from rival parties, which include money, materials and other offers including liquor and the same squarely covers corrupt practices as indicated in Representation of the People Act, 1951, ,” the petition said.
