Meenakshi Natarajan RS nomination rejection: RO played judge, left no scope for cure

On June 9, the returning officer for the Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sabha election, Arvind Sharma, rejected the nomination of Congress’ Rajya Sabha candidate Meenakshi Natarajan. The ground was a single omission: she had not listed a Hyderabad court matter in her election affidavit. A BJP candidate, Mahesh Kewat, had objected to the omission.

The effect was instant. With no Congress candidate left, the BJP’s three nominees are now set to enter the Upper House unopposed. Withdrawals close on June 11. The Rajya Sabha polls are slated for June 18. On June 10, a Congress delegation met the Election Commission (EC) to seek a reversal of the decision against Natarajan. The Congress leader on Thursday (June 11) moved the Supreme Court against the junking of her nomination, describing the Returning Officer’s decision as “arbitrary, biased and contrary to law” and urging the court to reverse the decision. The apex court has agreed to hear her case.

Also read: SC to hear Natarajan’s plea against rejection of RS candidature on Friday

3 reasons why RO’s decision was wrong

One question runs through the dispute. It is not whether Natarajan should have disclosed the matter. It is who is the right person who must decide that she should have, and by what procedure. The officer answered a contested question of law at the nomination counter, then struck her off without letting her remedy the supposed defect. On three independent grounds, that order is hard to defend. None of the three needs the cognisance puzzle solved.

Begin with the affidavit. Every candidate files Form 26. Through it, voters learn about a candidate’s assets, debts, education, and criminal record. The Supreme Court built this disclosure to protect the voter’s right to know. In the crime section, the form asks about past convictions and pending cases in which a court has taken cognisance. Cognisance is the trigger.

Cognisance is the moment a magistrate applies his mind and decides to proceed against a named person. The new criminal code places it in Section 210 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. What comes before is not a case in which cognisance has been taken. An FIR is not. A complaint is not. A notice is not. Form 26 does not ask for every FIR or notice a candidate has answered. It asks about cognisance.

The Hyderabad court case

What, then, is the Hyderabad matter? The grave allegations are not against Natarajan. They run against another Congress leader, Kumbham Shiva Kumar Reddy, accused of sexual assault and intimidation by a woman party worker. Two FIRs named him, one at Hyderabad’s Panjagutta station in 2022, and the other at Bengaluru’s Cubbon Park in 2023.

In 2025, the complainant moved a fresh proceeding before a magistrate in Hyderabad. She named seven Congress figures including Natarajan. It was not for the assault, but for failing to act on her grievance. In her petition, the complainant prayed the court to “take cognisance” and to award her compensation.

Also read: Congress approaches EC over rejection of Meenakshi Natarajan’s Rajya Sabha nomination

The court issued a notice to Natarajan under Section 223 of the new code, the provision that requires a magistrate to hear the proposed accused before taking cognisance of a private complaint. It is dated September 17, 2025, and it asks her to appear and file a reply. A Section 223 notice is, by definition, a pre-cognisance step. It is not a summons.

RO not a judge

The officer’s order says more. It records that the court had taken cognisance and issued summons. The only document on view says otherwise. There is no FIR against Natarajan in this matter, and no chargesheet. Whether any later order amounted to cognisance is disputed, and it turns on a magistrate’s order that is not public. That uncertainty is the heart of the case. A nomination counter is the wrong place to resolve it.

Section 36 of the Representation of the People Act lets an officer reject a paper for a defect, but bars rejection for a defect that is not of a substantial character. It does not turn him into a judge of criminal procedure.

That is the first ground. Scrutiny is summary and narrow. Section 36 of the Representation of the People Act lets an officer reject a paper for a defect, but bars rejection for a defect that is not of a substantial character. It does not turn him into a judge of criminal procedure. Whether a Hyderabad magistrate took cognisance is a contested legal question, tied to a document he had not seen and could not test. He answered it anyway, against the candidate, in a day.

EC rule says candidature can’t be junked

The second ground is the EC’s own rule. Its published FAQ for returning officers states that a nomination cannot be rejected for suppressing or giving false information in an affidavit. If an officer believes the affidavit is wrong, his remedy is to prosecute the candidate under Section 125A, which punishes a false affidavit with up to six months in jail, or a fine, or both. Prosecution, not rejection. The candidate stays in the contest.

Also read: Meenakshi's RS nomination rejected: Congress protests 'murder of democracy', seeks legal remedy

The third ground is the sharpest, because it rests on the officer’s own authority. He called the affidavit incomplete. The ruling that allows an officer to reject an incomplete affidavit, Resurgence India v. Election Commission of India (2013), permits it only after the candidate has been warned and given a reasonable chance to complete it. The Commission’s Form 26 guidance says the same. Section 36 adds time to rebut an objection. So the officer cannot take the benefit of that ruling while skipping its condition.

Being heard is not the same as being allowed to cure. Arguments were heard on the objection. It is not the separate step of letting her complete or correct the paper. Nothing in the record shows that a step was taken. If it was not, the rejection fails on that ground alone, whatever the truth about cognisance.

Why Natarajan’s rejection voids RS polls

The two rules close like pincers. If the affidavit was incomplete, she was owed a chance to cure it, which she appears not to have had. If it was complete but its contents were merely doubted, it could not be rejected at all. On either reading, the order does not hold. The candidate need not even win the cognisance argument.

Under Section 100(1)(c) of the Act, improper rejection of a nomination voids an election by itself, with no need to prove the result was affected.

What is at stake is not one seat. A Rajya Sabha election for several seats is a single election, by proportional representation through the single transferable vote. The seats are filled in one count, not as separate contests. Here, all three were declared elected unopposed, which happens only when the number of candidates equals the number of seats. Strip out the rejection and there were four candidates for three seats, which forces a poll. So the rejection caused all three unopposed returns. The defect is total.

Also read: Cong’s MP Rajya Sabha candidate Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination rejected

This is why the remedy, if it comes, reaches the whole election. Under Section 100(1)(c) of the Act, improper rejection of a nomination voids an election by itself, with no need to prove the result was affected. In an unopposed return, there is no count to dissect in any case. So a court that finds the rejection improper would set aside all three returns and order a fresh poll, with Natarajan free to stand. It could not simply declare her elected, since no poll established her support.

An ideal case

A recent challenge shows both the route and its limit. In 2020, 10 Rajya Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh were declared unopposed after an independent’s nomination was rejected. He petitioned to void all 10 returns and hold the election afresh, and the High Court issued notice to every returned member. But in 2022 the Allahabad High Court threw the petition out at the threshold, with no fresh election ordered. His affidavit had been defective, the returning officer had flagged it at filing, and he had never filed a corrected one. That, the court held, left him not a duly nominated candidate, so he could not maintain the petition. The contrast is the lesson. There the candidate was given a chance to cure and let it pass. Here, it appears, no chance to cure was offered at all.

Congress protests, BJP welcomes rejection

Timing is where the sides truly differ. The petition route offers no quick relief. Under Section 81, an election petition cannot be filed before the result. It may be presented not earlier than the date the returned candidate is elected. So the BJP gains by letting its nominees be declared first, on June 11. A clean ground, delivered after the seats are filled and years into a six-year term, decides little. That is why the Congress has turned to the Commission, whose power under Article 324 the Supreme Court called a reservoir in the Mohinder Singh Gill v. The Chief Election Commissioner (1978) case, to be drawn on where the law is silent and fairness demands. As of today the three are not yet returned. The window is open, just.

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Congress leaders pressed these points. Vivek Tankha, the senior advocate and the party’s Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, said the Hyderabad paper was a notice under the new code, not a criminal case, issued in a private complaint in which the complainant sought Rs 10 crore in compensation.

Leading the delegation, the senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the Commission that the matter had not reached cognisance and that, without it, no criminal case exists in law. Sachin Pilot called it the first time a Rajya Sabha nomination was struck over a mere notice. The BJP defended the order. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said a pending case in any court must be disclosed so that every voter knows, and he welcomed the rejection.

Flaw lies in order, not with candidate

One caution belongs in any honest account. The woman who went to court alleges sexual assault and of a party that failed her. Her complaint deserves a hearing on its merits. The case against the rejection does not rest on doubting her. Her allegations are for the magistrate to weigh. The validity of striking a candidate off the ballot is a separate question of election law. The two should not be conflated.

A fair objection remains. A cautious candidate would have listed the proceeding, added a line that cognisance was pending, and spared herself the fight. That is sound advice. It is not a legal duty. Form 26 asks a specific question, and prudence is not a ground the statute supplies. And this was no oversight. The papers were vetted before filing by Vivek Tankha, who judged that nothing required disclosure. The flaw lies in the order, not in the candidate’s caution.

Also read: EC announces Rajya Sabha polls for 24 seats on June 18

The contrast in treatment is hard to miss. A day later, in Jharkhand, the returning officer heard the Congress out on its objections to a BJP-backed independent, Parimal Nathwani, over his disclosures and the way his name was recorded across the papers, then overruled every objection and cleared him to contest.

Two officers, one week, two directions. Objections to a ruling-side candidate were examined and dismissed. An objection to an Opposition candidate was turned into a disqualification. The cases differ in their facts. The pattern is what invites the charge of an uneven field.

The matter will now move from the EC to the Supreme Court, which has already agreed to hear Natarajan’s petition challenging the Returning Officer’s order. The question it carries outgrows one seat, or even three. It is whether the gatekeeper of a nomination may also sit as its judge, and may strike a candidate without a chance to be cured. On the statute, the Commission’s own handbook, and seven decades of settled law, the answer is no.