Madras High Court denies interim relief to political parties de-registered for not contesting elections in last six years

The Madras High Court on Wednesday refused to stay the orders passed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently for de-registering a host of political parties which had not contested either the Legislative Assembly or Parliamentary elections in the last six years.

Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan said no interim order could be passed in favour of the de-registered political parties since it would amount to allowing their writ petitions and permitting them to contest the upcoming Assembly election in Tamil Nadu.

The judges agreed with senior counsel G. Rajagopalan, representing the ECI, that the balance of convenience was actually in favour of the ECI and not in favour of the petitioners which had admittedly not contested any of the elections conducted by the commission in the last six years.

Tamizhaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi, Manithaneya Jananayaga Katchi and a few others had filed the writ petitions challenging their de-registration. The petitioners had questioned the authority of the ECI to de-register them in the absence of a statutory power to do so.

Agreeing that the batch of cases argued by senior counsel N.L. Rajah, S. Prabakaran, P. Wilson, R. Srinivas and others had raised “a serious issue of constitutional importance,” the judges directed the High Court Registry to list the main writ petitions for final hearing in the second week of March 2026.

The petitioners had attacked the de-registration orders on the prime ground that Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act of 1951 speaks only about registration of political parties with the ECI but there was no corresponding provision for de-registration of those parties.

Therefore, once the parties get registered, they could not be de-registered by the ECI by invoking Section 21 of the General Clauses Act of 1897, they argued. They relied upon the Supreme Court’s verdict in Indian National Congress versus Institute of Social Welfare (2002) to support their argument.

In that judgement, the Supreme Court had held that parties could be de-registered only in extreme circumstances such as they having obtained registration through fraud or forgery or if they ceased to have faith and allegiance to the Constitution or to the principles of socialism, secularism and so on.

However, the ECI contended that the 2002 judgement was rendered before the commission issued elaborate guidelines, by exercising its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, in 2014 requiring every other political party to contest elections, conducted by the commission, in a block period of six years.

Mr. Rajagopalan said, after 2014, the ECI had made it mandatory for every new political party to incorporate in its constitution that it shall contest elections within five years of its registrationd and that it would agree for de-registration if it fails to contest the elections within a block period of six years. He said, the guidelines were issued after the Income Tax department had brought to the notice of the ECI that many registered political parties had been receiving public donations and claiming tax benefits without actually contesting any elections and remaining to be political parties just on paper.

The petitioners had also challenged the de-registration orders on the grounds that their members had contested Assembly and Parliamentary elections under the symbols belonging to other parties and that their direct participation in the local body polls had not been taken into consideration by ECI.

However, the ECI claimed that the participation in elections conducted by the commission alone would be taken into consideration and said, though the show cause notices to the petitioners had been issued by the Chief Electoral Officers, the de-registration orders had been passed by the ECI secretary.