ECI has discretion to announce bypolls any time within six months of seat falling vacant, experts say

Summary

Subscribed with another email? However, through judicial interpretation, a third exception has been recognised — when there is a pending election petition concerning that vacant seat. For instance, the ECI’s announcement of a bypoll in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia Assembly seat on Thursday led to protests from the Congress, which questioned the “hurry” of the poll body. The seat had fallen vacant after the disqualification of the Congress’s Rajendra Bharti in April, following his conviction in a fraud case. In this case, however, an election petition by the BJP candidate was pending in the Allahabad High Court and the bypoll was scheduled only in February 2025, after the petition in the High Court was eventually withdrawn. The Supreme Court, in the Election Commission of India v. The Commission must therefore await the outcome of the election petition before proceeding with the byelection, it had said. “This interpretation is sound because an election petition may ultimately result in the court declaring another candidate to have been duly elected. Of the three vacant Lok Sabha seats, for instance, the Bashirhat seat in West Bengal has had an election petition pending since the 2024 election. Thus, despite the fact that sitting Trinamool Congress MP S.K. There are vacancies in the Rajya Sabha as well, which arose due to the resignations of three Trinamool Congress MPs last month.