Panaji, April 2 The Bombay High Court on Thursday completed the hearing of arguments in connection with two petitions filed against the upcoming bypoll for the Ponda assembly seat in Goa, said the lawyer representing one of the petitioners.
The division bench comprising Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar here heard the arguments on behalf of the petitioners, the state and an intervener, he said.
The bye election to the Ponda constituency, necessitated following the death of the then state agriculture minister Ravi Naik, is scheduled to be held on April 9.
The petitioners, who are voters from the Ponda constituency, have argued that the newly elected MLA will have a tenure of less than a year, which they claim is against the law. The petitions state that the legislator should serve a term of at least one year.
The next assembly polls in the coastal state are due in March 2027.
The bench has reserved its order for the next date, after arguments over the matter were concluded, said Nitin Sardesai, representing Ankita Kamat, one of the petitioners.
The challenge is on the grounds that this bypoll is “patently illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional”, Sardesai said.
“The law requires that if a seat held by an elected member falls vacant during the term, a bye election must be held within six months. However, it goes to say that if the remaining term of that vacancy is less than one year, you cannot hold election,” he said.
Sardesai said the petitioner has pointed out that although MLA Naik passed away in October 2025, the election for the seat is being held on April 9, 2026.
Since the present assembly’s term runs only until March 2027, the new MLA will have about ten months in office, counting from May, he said.
“Though elections are held within six months of the occurrence of a vacancy, the incumbent will not have more than a year. It is unnecessarily causing loss to the treasury,” he said.
Sardesai said the Election Commission of India feels that since Naik passed away in October 2025, the tenure should be counted from the time when the seat fell vacant.
The petitioner disagrees with this reasoning, he said. “The government has not filed any affidavit,” he added.
