Team Herald
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) elections slated on Sunday but ordered that the results be kept in a sealed cover and not declared, endorsing the order of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court that they will be subject to the outcome of the case before it.
It also directed the Goa Bench to hear the matter pending before it on July 6. The GCA had come to the Supreme Court for staying the Bench’s June 25 order, reconstituting a new committee to conduct its elections.
While declining to stay the elections or quash the High Court-appointed committee, vacation judge, Justice Arun Mishra restrained the outgoing office bearers and the managing committee from taking any financial or major decisions, except to carry on with the day-to-day functions.
Justice Mishra said normally the court would not interfere with an ongoing election process, but it was stepping in only to the limited extent to maintain the purity and sanctity of the election process. He said when allegations are ‘serious’, the court can’t remain a ‘spectator’, adding that “we have to preserve the sanctity of the election”.
Senior advocate Gopal Krishna Jain, who appeared on behalf of GCA, told the court that the High Court had unnecessarily put a new election committee when there was already a validly set-up election committee. He said the High Court had acted on the petition of those who had filed their nomination papers only a day after the last official date of June 12 for filing the nominations.
As a relief to the petitioners, the High Court had set up a new committee to conduct the elections with former Bombay High Court judge A P Lawande as its chairman and senior advocate Nitin Sardessai and Rajnikant Lawandis its members. Lawandis was also on the election committee constituted by the association.
The High Court had ousted the election committee set up by the association, expressing the necessity for free and fair elections in view of apprehensions before it that there were attempts to make it one-sided. The new election committee constituted by it was asked to scrutinise the nomination papers, including those filed on June 13, a day after the last date, and notify names of the candidates for the elections.
