Chennai, Mar 26 (IANS): A division bench of Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy on Friday asked the Election Commission (EC) whether they could postpone the upcoming Puducherry Assembly elections.
The court made this observation during a petition filed by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) Puducherry unit President, A. Anand.
The petitioner has urged the High Court to take action on bulk SMS messages being sent to Puducherry voters whose mobile numbers were linked to Aadhar cards to join WhatsApp groups run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The petitioner alleged that there were 952 such groups.
The court made the observation when the EC assured the court that appropriate action would be taken and that the writ petition be kept pending, to which Chief Justice Banerjee said,"We are wondering whether we should postpone the upcoming Puducherry Assembly elections. Let us postpone the elections until some action is taken."
The EC Council argued that the inquiry is underway and if there is merit to the charges, then action, including derecognition of the party in Puducherry, can be contemplated.
Chief Justice Banerjee was quite vocal and said the EC has not done anything regarding the seriousness of the matter, adding that, during the last hearing, the EC had only submitted that the matter may be sent to the Crime cell.
The Chief Justice said,"The matter will be sent to the Crime cell and thereby to cold storage, nothing would have happened."
The court adjourned the case for March 31 and the bench called upon the EC to orally "keep every body in check, it's a matter of serious concern".
The High Court also called upon the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to immediately assess as to how much material was tampered upon by the BJP.
The Madras High court observation is seen as a major setback for the BJP and the EC had replied in the court that the BJP's Puducherry unit had not even bothered to respond to the EC's query on the matter.