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Expressing shock at the defacement of public property, purportedly done by candidates contesting the September 27 Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the police to ensure that it is removed and no further defacement takes place.
The court also orally remarked that Delhi University (DU) can deal with the defacement by either disqualifying the candidates, deferring the elections or not announcing election results till the defacement is cleaned up.
It asked the police to “cooperate with Delhi University, MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) and as well as the DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) and ensure that no further defacement of public property takes place and the defacement which has already taken place is removed”.
The bench of Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela also recorded in its order, “This court is of the prima facie view that expenditure in crores has been incurred by the candidates contesting the elections.”
Further, the bench orally remarked that the DU has two or three ways to deal with the defacement. ACJ Manmohan said, “One is you disqualify the candidates… Either you will defer the elections till everything gets cleaned up or you disqualify them and ask for new nominations to be filed. Or third is you allow the election on the date fixed but you don’t announce the results till everything gets cleaned up.”
Also expressing shock at the expenditure being incurred in the elections, ACJ Manmohan said, “It has to be repainted. If they can put up posters, they can pay for the repainting also, what is the problem… This does not seem like an ordinary student who is fighting an election, it seems like an organised group that is doing this. All have deep pockets, they will pay for them…”
“This is done by a literate group or an illiterate group? This sort of defacement and all will be done by someone who is illiterate. I think this is a failure of our education system… How much is being spent on these elections, is there any audit being done? This must be a few crores, not even in lakhs,” ACJ Manmohan remarked addressing DU.
Pulling up the chief election officer, ACJ Manmohan orally remarked, “It is time V-C (vice-chancellor) took a decision and if he has to annul the elections, then annul the elections. If they have spent so much money they need to suffer the hard way no? …I don’t think we can have an election in this atmosphere… You are not helpless, you have all the power. You can’t allow crores to be spent in an election like this, that too in a student union. If they are spending, they are going to recover it, please be careful about it.”
The court will hear the matter next on Thursday.
