Maharashtra & Goa (M&G) Bar Council veteran Manubhai Paragji Vashi has called for new elections in a letter, as the M&G Advocate General has begun investigating claims of illegality in the Bar Council elections after 4,000 votes were invalidated.
Incumbent M&G Bar Council candidate Vashi wrote that "the present elections are invalid on the face of it" in a letter addressed to the Advocate General and special committee members of the Bar Council of India on Friday (19 March 2010).
He wrote: "The elections being totally illegal, further expenditure on the counting may be stopped, and fresh elections be ordered, however unpleasant it is. It does not matter who wins or loses, but any illegalities can not be perpetuated... Lakhs of rupees of the BCMG [Bar Council of M&G] and crores of rupees of the candidates will go in drain."
Vashi is also the petitioner in a Bombay High Court claim relating to the 2004 Bar Council elections relating to whether votes expressing less than 10 preferences should not have been invalidated (Bar Council Of Maharashtra Vs Manubhai Paragji Vashi & Ors).
The case had reached the Supreme Court of India, which made an order on 5 January 2010 shortly before the M&G Bar Council polls on 7 January 2010 addressing that point.
Vashi wrote in his letter that this Supreme Court order had been "misinterpreted and wrongly communicated to the voters and the candidates" in the current elections.
"The Hon'ble Supreme Court has stayed only the Bombay High Court judgment but has not ordered that the elections should be held as per the rules framed by the BCMG that there should be minimum 10 preference votes to be cast by a voter to make the ballot paper valid," he argued.
"Though the Supreme Court had not ordered for holding the elections on the basis of 10 preference votes, last minute instructions were issued and voters and candidates were informed that 'in view of the Supreme Court order', now there would be 10 preference votes," continued the letter. "In the rules prevailing on the day of election, it is provided that only one (1st) preference vote is compulsory. Even on the ballot paper it was mentioned that First Preference was compulsory."
On Saturday (20 January), the M&G Advocate General Ravi Kadam presided over a meeting of all interested M&G Bar Council candidates at which he was to hear claims by candidate Anirudh Choube in respect of invalid votes. Choube argued, inter alia, that ballot papers should not be wholly invalidated where the voter accidentally listed two candidates in a low preference position.
Vashi urged his letter to also be presented to that committee, "failing which [he] will be required to file a fresh petition challenging the whole process, and pointing out how the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court was misinterpreted by some of the candidates as well as by the Committee members".
M&G Bar Council secretary and returning officer Varsha Rokade told Legally India: "Some people have given an interpretation of the counting that the valid/invalid [votes] process should be done in a particular way."
She added that after the Attorney General would reach a decision on the issue the final count would resume with the feeding of the electronic ballot counting machines, which was originally scheduled for today (23 March) but has now been postponed due to the current claims.
Roughly 4,000 or almost one in ten votes were invalidated in the January M&G Bar Council elections for various reasons.
In the Delhi earlier this month, two Bar Council members filed a writ petition challenging the internal election process of its Bar Council of India delegate member.