The Madras High Court has asked the Election Commission to respond by April 17 on how instructions circulated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) taking away the powers of the high court can be upheld, based on a plea moved by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the party’s lawyers said.

The DMK had filed writ petition challenging the orders of the Chief Electoral Officer, Tamil Nadu, rejecting some of its political advertisements.

DMK’s advocate S Manuraj said that as per the guidelines of the ECI, all parties are mandated to obtain prior approval for political advertisements. It is also stipulated that the applications filed by political parties must be decided within two days by the concerned authority.

“On one hand, there has been inordinate delay in deciding on the applications filed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, often taking up to 6 days,” Manuraj argued. “On the other hand, some of the applications have been rejected on flimsy grounds thereby restricting the campaigning efforts of the party.”

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Contending that free and fair elections are being vitiated, the DMK moved the Madras High Court with three petitions to set aside the orders of the Chief Electoral Officer and for granting of pre-certification. The DMK also challenged the regulations pertaining to the Media Certification and Monitoring Committees, Pre-certification of advertisements and Paid News.

The Standing Counsel appearing for respondents, Niranjan Rajagopalan, submitted to the court that he has been served with a copy of these petitions just 15 minutes back and he would take instructions in the matter. He also added that the aggrieved party can only approach the Supreme Court for either clarification or appropriate orders and no other court, tribunal or authority shall entertain the petition on complaints against advertisements. “He further submits that the said regulation was in vogue during all the earlier elections,” said a bench of chief justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sathya Narayana Prasad.

“The bone of contention between the parties, it appears, is Regulation 3.8 of Part-B of the Regulations, wherein it is stated that only the Supreme Court of India can entertain the appeal against the order of State level Media Certification and Monitoring Committee on pre-certification,” the court said in its orders.

Senior counsel for the petitioner, R Shunmugasundaram argued that the ECI cannot take away the jurisdiction of this court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. While the senior counsel for the petitioner said that the order mentioned above was to be in force only till May 10, 2004 the Standing Counsel for the respondents, sought time to know whether the order was extended from time to time.

The court posted the matter to April 17.