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SC should not answer presidential
reference on Gujarat poll: EC

The Election Commission on Wednesday requested the Supreme Court to decline giving an opinion on the presidential reference on Gujarat elections since the questions framed in it "are hypothetical."

The Commission's senior advocate K K Venugopal said: "The court should refrain to answer the presidential reference on the matter of Article 174 of the Constitution under which time limit of six months [between two sittings of a state assembly] applies only to two sessions of the House from the last sitting to the next one and not from the date of dissolution of the House.

"The question is if the court believes that the president has assumed that Article 174 applies to dissolution of the House, then it is subject to Article 324 which gives power to the Election Commission to hold election," he said.

Venugopal cited over half a dozen examples of the apex court declining to answer presidential references in which the questions were either not clear or were beyond the subject matter of the reference.

PTI

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