The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed as withdrawn a petition seeking directions to prevent 26 opposition political parties from using the acronym ‘I.N.D.I.A’ (Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance) as name of their alliance for the upcoming general elections in 2024.
Noting that the petition was filed only to gain publicity, the Bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia decided to dismiss the plea, but the Counsel requested to withdraw the same. Therefore, the public interest litigation was dismissed as withdrawn.
Filed by Advocate-on-Record (AOR) Dhawal Uniyal, the PIL contended that since the formation of I.N.D.I.A alliance, the electronic, print and social media, along with party workers and leaders of the alliance were using slogans like “It’s going to be NDA vs. INDIA in 2024”, “PM Modi vs. INDIA”, “BJP, can you challenge INDIA”.
Such slogans were directly or indirectly tarnishing the unity, dignity and integrity of the nation in national and international media, only to misuse the name of the nation to gain power, noted the plea. It further claimed that the use of the name ‘INDIA’ was against the spirit of Democracy.
As soon as the matter came up for hearing, the Bench observed that if the petition was about violation of an election norm, then the petitioner must go to the Election Commission.
The Counsel representing the petitioner argued that had there been any intention to make a publicity stunt, the petitioner could have given interviews to several media houses, but Uniyal has refrained from doing so.
The lawyer pointed out that similar petitions have been filed before the High Court of Delhi and notices have also been issued in the same.
The Apex Court asked the Counsel whether he would like to withdraw the present petition, but he replied that he wanted to argue the same and requested the Court to hear the petition on merits.
The Counsel contended that a race was going on in the country to look nationalist. He further said that using the acronym I.N.D.I.A. for naming a political party was against the norms as well as morality.
The Bench then told the lawyer that it was not the Court’s job to determine morality in politics. It further observed that the judiciary could not prevent the race (to look nationalist) and dismissed the plea as withdrawn.
(Case title: Rohit Kheriwal vs Election Commission of India and Ors)