The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the nomination of Shobhana Bhartia, Vice-chairperson of HT Media Ltd, and Chandan Mitra, Editor, Pioneer, as members of the Rajya Sabha.
The petitioner, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, had challenged their nomination to the Upper House on the ground that they did not fall under the four categories, literature, science, art and social service, mentioned in Article 80(3) of the Constitution under which the President makes the nomination.
However, the plea did not impress the bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal, which dismissed the petition observing that the expression 'social service' is wide enough to cover such cases. Petitioner's counsel Prashant Bhushan submitted that the nomination of journalists to the Rajya Sabha was being used to compromise the indepen dence of the media.
Bhushan argued that journalists and lawyers as a category of people for nomination to the Rajya Sabha was proposed in the Constituent Assembly and the proposal was rejected after a debate and, therefore, their nomination to the Upper House was unconstitutional.
"If your argument is accepted then no journalist can be nominated to the Rajya Sabha," said the bench. The petitioner also requested the court to issue appropriate guidelines regarding the manner of selection of persons to be nominated as members of the Rajya Sabha by the President under Article 80(1)(a) of the Constitution.
The petitioner had sought directions that nominations to the Upper House can only be made from the persons falling in categories/disciplines mentioned in Article 80(3) of the Constitution and not otherwise. It had further demanded prohibition on the nomination of persons "who are otherwise eligible but known political supporters and members of political parties."
