The Delhi High Court today questioned the maintainability of a PIL seeking to restrain candidates defeated in Lok Sabha election from contesting the Rajya Sabha polls, saying courts do not make or amend the law. "The courts are not supposed to make a law or make any amendments in the existing law. To this, the petitioner said being a common man, he had the locus to file the petition raising this "serious" issue. "Such candidates cannot be nominated or allowed to contest in Rajya Sabha election," the plea said, adding that this is "against the fundamental principle of democracy, wherein mandate/votes on Indian citizen is supreme". While candidates are elected to Lok Sabha directly by the people, members of Rajya Sabha are elected by the elected members of state assemblies in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.

Source: dna February 20, 2017 09:45 UTC