Meenakshi Natarajan v. Election Commission of India (2026): Article 329(b) bars the writ court from the election process

On 12 June 2026, a vacation bench of the Supreme Court — Prashant Kumar Mishra, J. and Atul S. Chandurkar, J. — dismissed a petition under Article 32 brought by the Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan against the rejection of her nomination for a Rajya Sabha by-election from Madhya Pradesh. The Court did not decide whether the rejection was right or wrong. It held, instead, that the question was not one the writ court could entertain at all: under Article 329(b) of the Constitution, an election once set in motion can be questioned only through an election petition, presented in the manner the law prescribes, after the election has run its course.

The facts in brief

Meenakshi Natarajan had filed her nomination papers for a Rajya Sabha by-election from Madhya Pradesh. The returning officer rejected the nomination, taking the view that her affidavit in Form 26 — the disclosure affidavit required of a candidate under the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 — was incomplete. According to the officer's reasoning, she had failed to disclose a pending court matter in Hyderabad to which, it was said, she had responded to a notice in October 2025; the omission, in the officer's view, rendered the affidavit defective and the candidature liable to rejection.

Rather than wait for the election to conclude and challenge the rejection through the statutory route, Natarajan moved the Supreme Court directly, invoking its writ jurisdiction under Article 32. The thrust of the petition was that the rejection was so plainly erroneous that the Court should intervene at once, before the seat was filled.

The question

The case turned on a question of jurisdiction, not of merits. Could the Supreme Court, exercising its power under Article 32, intervene in an election that was already under way — specifically, to examine and undo the rejection of a nomination — or did Article 329(b) of the Constitution bar that intervention and confine the aggrieved candidate to an election petition after the poll?

Article 329(b) opens with the words "Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution" and provides that no election to either House of Parliament or to a State legislature shall be called in question except by an election petition presented to such authority and in such manner as a law made by the appropriate legislature may provide. The petitioner's case required the Court to consider whether that bar admits of an exception where the alleged illegality is glaring or manifest — or whether it operates absolutely, regardless of how strong the complaint may appear at the threshold.

What the Court held

The Court dismissed the petition. It held that Article 329(b) erects a constitutional bar to judicial interference in an election that is in progress, and that the bar does not yield to an argument that the illegality complained of is especially clear. Drawing on the settled line of authority refusing to entertain Article 32 petitions against steps in an ongoing election, the bench declined to carve out an exception for "glaring" or "manifestly arbitrary" errors. As reported, the bench observed that whenever an attempt has been made to invoke the Court's jurisdiction under Article 32 in such matters, the Court has repeatedly declined interference, having regard to the constitutional mandate contained in Article 329(b).

The bench was unwilling to accept a distinction between ordinary election disputes and those said to involve an obvious illegality. As the Supreme Court Observer reported the exchange, Mishra, J. pressed the petitioner's side on the point:

The Court was careful, however, to confine its ruling to maintainability. It clarified that its observations touching on the basis of the rejection were made only for the purpose of deciding whether the writ petition could be entertained, and would not prejudice Natarajan's right to challenge the rejection by way of an election petition. The remedy, in other words, was not extinguished — it was relocated to the forum the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, designate for it.

Analysis

The decision is an orthodox application of a doctrine that has governed Indian election law for decades. The architecture of Article 329(b) reflects a deliberate constitutional choice: that elections, once begun, should proceed to completion without being arrested by a stream of interlocutory challenges, and that disputes about how the election was conducted should be gathered up and resolved afterwards, in a single proceeding designed for the purpose. The non-obstante opening — "Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution" — is the textual signal that this scheme is meant to displace even the high remedies of Articles 32 and 226 in the field it occupies.

The petitioner's argument was the one that always tests this kind of bar: surely, it runs, the rule cannot be so absolute that it shields even a patently unlawful act from correction while the harm is still live. The Court's answer was that the strength of the complaint is precisely what the bar refuses to weigh at this stage. To allow a "manifest illegality" exception would be to invite, in every contested rejection, the very threshold litigation that Article 329(b) was designed to keep out of the courts during the election — because every petitioner is convinced that the error against them is glaring. The discipline of the provision lies in its refusal to make that assessment until the election is over.

What the ruling does not do is leave the candidate without recourse. The point the Court stressed — that its remarks were limited to maintainability and would not foreclose an election petition — is the structural counterpart to the bar. Article 329(b) does not abolish the right to challenge a rejection; it channels that challenge into the election-petition jurisdiction, where the grievance can be examined on a full record after the poll. The grievance is deferred, not denied.

Why it matters

The decision is a clean restatement of where the line falls between the writ jurisdiction and the self-contained code of election disputes. For practitioners, the practical lesson is direct: a wrongful rejection of nomination papers — including a rejection said to rest on an erroneous reading of the Form 26 disclosure requirements — is not, during the election, a matter for a writ petition under Article 32 or Article 226. The route is the election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, brought after the result is declared.

That allocation has consequences for strategy and timing. A candidate who is excluded at the nomination stage cannot expect the writ court to restore them to the contest mid-stream; the remedy operates after the fact and, if it succeeds, through the machinery of the election petition rather than through interim relief. Meenakshi Natarajan is a reminder that Article 329(b) is not a procedural inconvenience to be argued around in a strong case — it is a constitutional bar that the Supreme Court continues to enforce as written.

Related on Valkya

• Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner
• Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain
• Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu
• ADR v. Election Commission of India

Sources

• Supreme Court Observer, "SC dismisses Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan's challenge against the rejection of her Rajya Sabha nomination"
• Verdictum, "Supreme Court Dismisses Congress Leader Meenakshi Natarajan's Plea Against Rejection Of Rajya Sabha Nomination"
• LiveLaw, "Supreme Court Dismisses Meenakshi Natarajan's Plea Against Rajya Sabha Nomination Rejection, Allows Her To File Election Petition"
• Bar & Bench, "Supreme Court dismisses Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan's plea against rejection of Rajya Sabha candidature"