Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking direction to ECI

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition filed by lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay seeking a direction to political parties against fielding candidates who have more than two children.

In his plea, Upadhyay had submitted that a direction is issued to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to insert an additional condition that "political party shall not set up candidates, who have more than two children".

A division bench of the apex court, headed by the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said, "We could not pass any order directing the political parties whose candidates are having more than two children."

"It is a constitutional court and we cannot direct the political parties to do so," Justice Gogoi said while dismissing the petition.