An in-house controversy seems to be brewing in the Supreme Courts own backyard,with the Delhi High Court issuing a notice to the newly-elected office-bearers of the apex court Bar association and the election committee on a petition filed by lawyers to declare the May 11,2011 election null and void. The closely contested polls saw senior advocate P H Parekh elected president of the over 7,000-strong Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) by a narrow margin of two votes. Outgoing president Ram Jethmalani lost the election. But the election results has come under a cloud,with the Registrar General of the High Court on May 20 summoning 23 defendants,including the SCBA,through its secretary,the office-bearers and even the election committee to appear on June 6 in this court in person or by a pleader duly instructed and able to answer all material questions posed by four lawyers led by advocate Anis Suhrawardy about the election. Suhrawardy himself was defeated in the race for SCBA vice-president. We will suitably reply. As I look at it,he has a grudge against the election committee,the SCBA is only a pro forma litigant, SCBA Honorary Secretary and SC advocate KC Kaushik said. In 2008,the SCBA under Parekh had similarly hit a rough patch,that too within days of getting elected,with fellow lawyers alleging election malpractices and breach of code of conduct as first reported by The Indian Express on May 12,2008. The members were then advised to resolve the matter before an appropriate authority, recalls advocate Vijay Pratap Singh. But SCBA Executive Committee member Meera Bhatia denied in-fighting within the top courts lawyers association. Every election is separate,with a separate committee running the election. In elections generally,someone may feel like challenging the results,and so the nomenclature election petition. There is nothing abnormal in this, Bhatia said. Nevertheless,the lawyers are bracing for a fight,alleging that the poll results are undoubtedly skewed for a couple of reasons: First,the election committee,headed by senior advocate Jawahar Lal Gupta,chose to employ electronic voting machine (EVM) in contravention of the Memorandum of Association of the SCBA. It says that the committee ignored all written requests for voting by ballot paper and chose to notify that the machines would be used only on the previous day of the elections. Moreover,in the present case,the EVM was reported to be faulty and defective. None of the safeguards required to be taken for testing the machine had been done. The machine did not correctly record the votes cast and was also open to tampering, the petition alleged. Secondly,the time of the voting was unilaterally extended by the election committee without a formal communication to the candidates and voters. This led many voters to procuring voting slips even after the scheduled time of 4 pm,the petition alleged. The result of the election was hastily declared around the midnight of May 11-12,2011,itself. Once the election schedule has been notified in writing,nobody is authorised to extend the time of voting. Such unilateral extension undoubtedly skews the result of the election, the petition submitted.
