Delhi High Court rejects Lok Insaf Party's petition against Election Commission

New Delhi : The Delhi High Court has rejected a petition filed by the Lok Insaf Party against the allotment of letter boxes as symbols for the Punjab Assembly elections and asked the party to pay Rs one lakh for legal proceedings.

The court observed that the petitioner had relied on old Election Commission documents in support of his claim of free symbol and therefore did not accept the petitioner's plea that he had not made this mistake on purpose.

During the hearing, the court downloaded the documents from the Election Commission's website. It contained the entire notification, including the table-four. Given this, it appears that the applicant deliberately did not display the list of free symbols in Table Four in his application. This table-four list shows that a tractor-driven farmer is not a free symbol, the ECI has also notified the matter under paragraph 10B. Instead, the petitioner cites an older version of Table 4 in his application, which supports his case on prima facie basis.

The court noted that the tractor-driven peasant symbol was given to a party registered in Assam. Now no other state party can claim this symbol and if it does, it cannot be approved. Hence this writ petition is dismissed. As the petitioner has approached the court with health intentions, he will now also have to bear the cost of the proceedings. He is ordered to deposit Rs 1 lakh before the Delhi High Court's Legal Services Committee, the court said in its November 11 order.