Two decades ago, when Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray made his fiery speeches to consolidate his party’s position on the eve of a by-election in Mumbai, little did he think he would not get away with his outbursts as usual. The three speeches he delivered while campaigning for the Sena candidate, Dr Ramesh Prabhoo, in the byelection to the Vile Parle assembly constituency, invited a landmark judgment in the history of Indian politics. It was the first case in the country in which a candidate’s election was set aside and the party chief disfranchised for six years for seeking votes on religious grounds.

The year was 1987. The Sena was in high spirits, having come to power for the first time in the municipal corporation in 1985. Prabhoo was pitted against Congress’s Prabhakar Kunte. Thackeray’s ‘Hindutva’ speeches worked and Prabhoo got elected. However, Kunte moved the Bombay High Court, accusing Prabhoo of seeking votes on religious grounds and thereby indulging in electoral malpractices. The high court declared Prabhoo’s election void on April 7, 1989, for the commission of corrupt practices under Sections 123 (3) and 123 (3A) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951. The high court found that Prabhoo “had made appeals to voters to vote in his favour on grounds of his religion and promoted feelings of enmity and hatred between different classes of citizens on grounds of religion and community”.

Prabhoo went in appeal against the verdict to the Supreme Court, which granted an interim stay on the high court order. The president referred the issue to the Election Commission, which endorsed the high court findings but said it was not competent to examine the action taken by the apex court under section 8A. The final judgment of the apex court came on December 11, 1995. It dismissed Prabhoo’s appeal and upheld the Bombay High Court ruling. Meanwhile, during the period of the interim order of the SC, Prabhoo was elected from the same constituency (Vile Parle) in the 1990 assembly elections. When the EC granted a hearing to Prabhoo, he defended himself on the grounds that he had been wrongfully held guilty of corrupt practices by the high court and apex court. He argued through his lawyer that section 8A was unconstitutional, arbitrary, and violated Article 14 of the Constitution. He also pointed out that he had not claimed any allowances, voted in the assembly or participated in any other activity as an MLA. The EC ratified the decision of the SC and disqualified Prabhoo.

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