Bombay High Court dismisses plea alleging irregularities in Maharashtra Assembly polls

The Hindu

10 hours ago

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday(June 25, 2026) dismissed a writ petition challenging the validity of the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, describing the case as a 'gross abuse of the process of law.' A Division Bench of Justice G.S. Kulkarni and Justice Arif Doctor held that the petition, filed by Mumbai resident Chetan Chandrakant Ahire, lacked legal merit, substance, and locus standi.
'We have no manner of doubt that this writ petition needs to be summarily rejected. It is accordingly rejected. The hearing of this petition has practically taken the whole day leaving aside our urgent cause list, and for such reason the petition would certainly warrant dismissal with cost, however, we refrain from doing so,' the Bench said.
Ahire, a voter from the Mumbai-Vikhroli constituency, had sought sweeping reliefs including the annulment of results across all 288 Assembly constituencies, withdrawal of election certificates issued to winning candidates, and reversion to paper ballots. Through advocate Prakash Ambedkar, assisted by advocates Sandesh More and Hitendra Gandhi, he claimed that approximately 76 lakh votes were illegally cast after 6 p.m. on polling day, November 20, 2024, and cited an RTI response to argue that no official data existed for those post-deadline votes.
However, the Court found that Ahire neither filed an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 nor made any prior representation to the Election Commission of India (ECI). 'On such an extremely weak, feeble and inadequate plea, the petitioner is desirous to maintain this writ petition,' the judges noted.
The Bench also criticised the petition for relying solely on an RTI reply obtained by a third party, journalist Venkatesh Nayak, and on speculative newspaper reports. 'There is no other material whatsoever, much less of any authenticity. We wonder as to how the petitioner can have a locus standi to seek such wide, sweeping and drastic reliefs to question the entire elections of the State Legislative Assembly. It is a relief, too far-fetched, that too on the basis of no cause for action as the facts clearly demonstrate. This more particularly in the context of the Constitutional and Statutory requirements of a bar being created under Article 329(b) which inter alia provides that no election to either House of the Legislature of a State shall be called in question, except by an election petition presented to such authority and in such manner as may be provided for by or under any law made by the appropriate legislature,' the judgment stated.
Senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, representing the ECI, argued that the petitioner had no legal standing to challenge elections state-wide. He also highlighted that the petitioner failed to implead any of the winning candidates — a procedural lapse that rendered the petition non-maintainable.
Advocate Uday Warunjikar, representing the Union of India, added that Ahire had bypassed the mandatory route of filing an election petition within 45 days of the declaration of results and had not followed the requisite legal procedures to seek a writ of mandamus.
The Court found no evidence of fraud or illegal voting and emphasized that the petitioner had failed to demonstrate any personal legal injury or enforceable right. 'We do not find 'a scratch' of a legal grievance, much less any legal injury,' the Court remarked, dismissing the suggestion that 76 lakh votes cast after 6 p.m. invalidated the electoral process.
In a strong rebuke, the Bench stated: 'We are also quite astonished as to how a writ petition can be filed on the basis of a single newspaper article purporting to canvass a theory of discrepancies in the 'cast vote' and 'poll votes', and on one such opinion published in the newspaper of one Shri. Ketan Pathak. Except such limited material, there is no other material whatsoever, much less of any authenticity, to the effect that there was any malpractice, fraud or complaint of any nature in regard to the voting at the closing hours of the poll i.e. at about 6 p.m., not by the voters who were not in queue. We are of the clear opinion that merely on political opinions or on unsubstantiated newspaper reports, a petition under Article 226 cannot at all be maintained.'
Although the Court noted that a whole day had been consumed hearing the petition, it refrained from imposing costs. The judgment reaffirms the legal principle that disputes regarding elections must follow the statutory route through election petitions and not through writ jurisdiction, especially when unsupported by concrete evidence.