SINCE SANTOKH's REMAINDER TENURE WAS MORE THAN ONE YEAR, HENCE AS PER R.P. ACT, 1951 BY-ELECTION NECESSARY, SAYS HEMANT KUMAR ADVOCATE
(MOREPIC1) Face2News/Chandigarh
The unfortunate demise of sitting Congress Lok Sabha MP from Jalandhar Parliamentary Constituency (PC), Chaudhary Santokh Singh today Jan 14, 2023 would result in the conduct of a By-election for this seat in the next few months.
This would indeed be the second Lok Sabha Bypoll in Punjab after Sangrur PC in less than one year under the Bhagwant Mann led AAP dispensation which came to power in March, 2022.
Meanwhile, explaining the legal provision of By-Election, Hemant Kumar, an Advocate at Punjab & Haryana High Court told that as per Section 149 of Representation of the People(RP) Act, 1951 when the seat of a member elected to the House of the People (Lok Sabha) becomes vacant or is declared vacant or his election is declared void, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has to fill such vacancy.
(SUBHEAD)As far as time limit for filling up such vacancy, Hemant while quoting Section 151A of RP Act, 1951 asserts that such By-election is to be conducted within a period of six months from the date of occurrence of the vacancy. However, such bypoll is not conducted if the remainder of the term of a member ( who is deceased or unseated etc.) in relation to vacancy is less than one year.
Hemant said that since present 17th Lok Sabha tenure is till 16 June 2024, hence deceased Cong MP Santokh's remainder tenure in current House was one and half year left which is more than one year. Hence, Bypoll would have to be conducted by ECI in the next six months in Jalandhar PC.
Last year, when former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav died in Oct, 2022, who was also sitting Samajwadi Party MP from Mainpuri Seat in UP in current 17th Lok Sabha, then By-election was conducted on that seat within two months in Dec, 2022 from where her daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam's son and also ex-CM of UP won this seat by defeating BJP candidate Raghuraj Singh Shakya by over 2.88 lakh votes.
As far as Jalandhar PC is concerned, Hemant asserts that traditionally this seat has remained a Congress bastion/stronghold except on two-three occasions when former PM, Inder Kumar Gujaral won from here on Janata Dal ticket in 1989 and 1998 and Akali Dal nominee won in 1977. After 2008, this seat got reserved for Scheduled Castes after which firstly Mohinder Singh Kaypee won on Cong ticket in 2009 after which SantokhChaudhary won twice in 2014 and 2019.
