BJP, Cong. seek time to reply to EC notice on violation of code
Both parties miss the 11 a.m. deadline on Monday; the BJP has requested a week’s time, while the Congress wants 14 days to submit its response
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday sought a week’s time to respond to the Election Commission’s (EC) notice issued to party president J.P. Nadda on complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the Congress has sought 14 more days on a similar plaint against Rahul Gandhi.
Both parties were supposed to submit their responses by 11 a.m. on Monday.
The EC sources said that the Congress had initially sought time till 5 p.m. on Monday but later asked for 14 more days.
No names of leaders
On April 25, the EC had for the rst time issued a notice for violation of the Model Code of Conduct by Mr. Modi. However, taking a circuitous route, the notice was sent to Mr. Nadda and not to Mr. Modi directly. The notice failed even to mention the Prime Minister by name but the complaints attached along with it were those of the Congress, CPI(M) and so on, against Mr. Modi’s “malicious election speech delivered at Banswara (Rajasthan)”.
A similar notice issued to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge contained complaints against him and Mr. Gandhi. This notice, too, did not name any of the leaders.
The EC issuing the notices to the respective party presidents instead of the leaders concerned was considered unprecedented. In its notice to the BJP, the EC asked Mr. Nadda to get all the star campaigners of the party to “set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of model code of conduct in letter and spirit”.
The commission said it had decided that while individual star campaigners would continue to remain responsible for the speeches they made, the Commission would address party chiefs “on a case-to-case basis”.
The poll panel also held that campaign speeches made by those holding high positions had more serious consequences.
In the notice to Mr. Kharge, the EC included complaints led by the BJP, alleging that he and Mr. Gandhi had violated the MCC.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s plea for interim bail.
A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna posted the case for the week commencing on May 6.
Meanwhile, the Bench, including Justice Dipankar Datta, gave the Jharkhand High Court liberty to pronounce judgment on Mr. Soren’s petition challenging his arrest by the ED in January.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for Mr. Soren, said none of the predicate offences, including forgery or fraud, could be linked to his client. “He is not involved in any of that,” Mr. Sibal said.
Justice Khanna, however, said there were allegations of proceeds of crime linked to Mr. Soren. “There is a plot of [land of] 8.5 acres,” Justice Khanna said.
Mr. Soren had moved the Supreme Court on April 24, saying the High
Court was not pronouncing its verdict on his plea challenging his arrest by the ED in the money laundering case. He was arrested on January 31 after he resigned as the Jharkhand Chief Minister, and party loyalist and State Transport Minister Champai Soren was named as his successor.
He was arrested after being questioned by the ED for seven hours in the case.
The ED is probing the alleged “huge amounts of proceeds of crime generated by manipulation of ocial records by showing dummy sellers and purchasers in the guise of forged/bogus documents to acquire huge parcels of land having value in crores”.