The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition by Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan challenging the rejection of her candidature for the Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and AS Chandurkar declined to exercise its writ jurisdiction, citing Article 329 of the Constitution. The provision bars courts from interfering in electoral matters, and says that any polls to either House of Parliament can only be challenged through an election petition.

Election petitions can be filed for inquiring into the validity of a poll. These pleas must be filed in the High Court of the particular state in which the poll was conducted

However, the bench allowed the Congress leader to file an election petition. The bench also clarified that it was not commenting on the merits of the case.

The court did not accept Natarajan’s argument that writ jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution could be invoked to deal with “glaring and manifest” errors in the rejection of the nomination, Live Law reported. The court said that if it were to do so, it would lead to the reading of a principle that does not exist in Article 329.

Article 32 guarantees citizens the right to move the Supreme Court directly to enforce their fundamental rights.

Natarajan was the Congress’ sole candidate for the June 18 Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh. Her nomination was rejected on Tuesday after the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that she had withheld information in her affidavit about a criminal case against her in Telangana.

However, her lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi contended that only criminal cases where charges have been framed need to be disclosed. The Congress leader had only received a notice from a magistrate under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, Live Law quoted Singhvi as saying.

The lawyer said that the court in Telangana had not taken cognisance of the complaint based on which the notice was issued.

Rajya Sabha polls

The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly was scheduled to elect three members to the Rajya Sabha on June 18. With the Assembly’s effective strength at 229, a candidate requires 58 first-preference votes to win.

Of these seats, the BJP has 164 MLAs excluding the speaker. While the Congress has 63 MLAs, its ally Bharat Adivasi Party has one.

The BJP had the numbers to win two of the three seats as it needed 116 votes to do so. However, it will be left with 48 votes that are not sufficient to clinch the third seat.

Despite this, the BJP fielded three candidates, raising concerns in the Congress about cross-voting and defections.

On Tuesday, before Natarajan’s candidature was rejected, the Congress flew most of its MLAs from Bhopal to Bengaluru, where the party is in power, while keeping a few senior legislators back in Madhya Pradesh, where it is in the Opposition.

On Thursday, all three candidates of the BJP were declared as elected unopposed by the returning officer.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.