Supreme Court to hear Meenakshi Natarajan’s plea against rejection of RS candidature on June 12

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Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan. File | Photo Credit: PTI

The Supreme Court will hear on Friday (June 12, 2026) a plea filed by Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan challenging the rejection of her nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh.

A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and A.S. Chandurkar agreed to take up the matter following an oral request by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The Bench, however, declined to grant any interim relief preventing the declaration of the election result, observing that courts should ordinarily not intervene once the electoral process has commenced.

“Sorry, we cannot. We are posting it tomorrow, subject to clearance of all defects,” the Bench told Mr. Singhvi, who urged the court to pass an interim order preventing the authorities from declaring the result pending adjudication of the plea.

The Court’s order came amid concerns raised by Congress that Thursday (June 11, 2026) was the final day for withdrawal of nominations. The party pointed out that, with Ms. Natarajan out of the fray, the BJP candidates could be elected unopposed after the withdrawal deadline expired.

“Today is the last day of withdrawal. They are technically entitled to declare the result after the deadline to withdraw nomination ends later today because it would be unopposed,” Mr. Singhvi, said, urging the Bench to at least direct the authorities not to declare the result till the matter was heard.

Contending that the rejection of Ms. Natarajan’s nomination was legally untenable, the senior counsel argued that the criminal proceedings relied upon by the Returning Officer had not advanced to the stage where a competent court had taken cognisance of the complaint. “My nomination has been rejected even though there is no cognisance taken by the court. How can they do this?” he submitted.

Justice Mishra, however, asked how the petition could be entertained once the election process was already underway. Mr. Singhvi responded that judic