Bombay High Court cancels Akola West by-election on April 26

Nagpur: The Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench on Tuesday set aside the Election Commission of India (ECI) notification for by-polls for the Akola West Assembly constituency on April 26.

A division bench of Justice Anil Killor and Justice M.S. Jawalkar ruled that there would be no by-election for the Assembly constituency as the new MLA would get less than a year to represent the people.

The Akola West seat fell vacant after sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Govardhan Sharma died on November 3, 2023.

The next Assembly elections are scheduled around October this year, six months after the Lok Sabha polls are completed.

The high court verdict came on a public interest litigation filed by area resident Anil Dubey praying to set aside the ECI notification of March 16 proposing to conduct the by-election in the constituency, along with other Assembly and Parliamentary polls around the country.

Dubey contended that the tenure of the newly-elected legislator would be less than one year and there was no need to spend money on bypolls for such a short period.

Citing a precedent of the Saoner constituency in 2019, the judges observed that the new MLA would get less than one year in office and accordingly, holding the by-elections would be violative of the Representation of the People Act's Section 151 (A).

In its order, the bench said that the ECI’s March 16 notification, to the extent of the Akola West Assembly constituency, "has been set aside and it is declared that there shall be no by-election in the segment".

The ECI had announced the bye-election for the Akola West assembly along with 25 other by-polls for different Assembly segments in several states, along with the LS general elections.