The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by UDF candidate and Ernakulam district panchayat vice-president Elsie George challenging the rejection of her nomination for the upcoming local body elections.

Her nomination papers for Division 26 (Kadamakkudy) were rejected by the returning officer, the Ernakulam District Collector, on the ground that the proposer listed in the form was not a voter from the same division. The rejection during scrutiny on Saturday left the UDF without a candidate in the division, as no dummy nomination had been filed. Elsie argued that the returning officer failed to properly verify the electoral roll details of the proposer, as required under Section 52(4) of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act.

However, the court declined to examine the merits of the rejection at this stage. The judge noted that once the election process has begun, courts must refrain from interfering, and any dispute regarding nomination acceptance or rejection must be raised before the designated election tribunal after the polls.

Referring to an order issued a day earlier in a similar case, the court held that the writ petition was not maintainable during the election process. With this reasoning, the court dismissed Elsie’s petition but clarified that she is free to pursue her challenge before the appropriate election tribunal at a later stage.

According to the petition, George submitted her nomination papers on November 21 at around 1.30 pm, as per the election schedule issued by the District Election Officer. The petition states that election officials checked the electoral roll numbers of the proposer and raised no objections at the time of submission. A statutory receipt acknowledging the nomination was issued the same day.However, her original proposer, Himalal, had been listed in earlier electoral rolls under Division 26 during the previous election. After realising that Himalal's present ward is Division 27 (Vypin Division) and that the proposer’s details did not match the candidate's division as required, George immediately filed a fresh nomination with a new proposer - Sandeep, a voter from Thandassery in the Kadamakudy division.

As per the petition, she approached the District Collector, who is the Returning Officer, at 2.50 pm on November 21 itself with the fresh nomination. However, the District Collector, who is the Returning Officer, did not permit submitting the nomination at 3.10 pm, alleging a delay of 10 minutes after the deadline of 3 pm. She asserted that the Returning Officer failed to consider her corrected submission and did not give her an opportunity to rectify the earlier clerical mismatch before finalising the decision.