By Kavita Mistry 
Thiruvananthapuram: The Supreme Court has set aside the Kerala High Court order annulling the election of CPI (M) MLA A.Raja from Idukki’s Devikulam constituency in the 2021 state polls.
Pronouncing its verdict on a petition filed by Congress functionary D Kumar, the Kerala High Court in March 2023 had said that Raja violated the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and was ineligible to contest from the Scheduled Cate (SC) reserved seat as he was a Christian convert.
Allowing an appeal by Raja, a bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, and Augustine George Masih said Raja is entitled to hold the MLA post. “The appeal is allowed. High Court order set aside. Election plea set aside. Petitioners are entitled to hold the legislative post from the beginning,” the SC bench said Tuesday.
The bench said a duly issued caste/community certificate can’t be challenged in an election petition. The records from the school, where Raja’s children are studying, show that the family belongs to the Parayan caste, it added.
Kumar had finished second behind Raja in the 2021 Kerala polls. While Raja won from the electoral contest with 59,049 votes, Kumar came short with 51,201 votes.
In the High Court, Kumar alleged that Raja submitted false documents to contest the election and claimed that Raja’s parents, Anthony and Esther, were practicing Christians who were baptized by the CSI (Church of South India) church in 1992.
Raja, he alleged, was also married to a Christian woman. The caste certificate filed along with the nomination issued by the Devikulam Tahsildar depicting Raja as a Hindu Parayan was incorrect, the Congress functionary contended.
However, Raja claimed that he belonged to the Hindu Parayan community, which is listed in the Scheduled Caste in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Raja’s grandparents had migrated to Idukki from Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli in 1951.
Raja said that though his parents prayed in a church to have a child, they remained Hindus, adding that he was never baptised.
The Supreme Court said the entries in the church register do not conclusively establish that it belongs to Raja’s family, with the court finding many overwriting, editing, and deletions there.
“The production of some photographs or some rituals which may have been performed by the appellant (Raja), nay, even assuming they were actually performed by the appellant, at the cost of repetition, can, in no manner take the place of evidence, especially when matters of the like herein are being considered by the courts,” the top court said.
The high court accepted whatever was presented by Kumar and, in such an approach, disregarded and ignored the significant gap in the evidence brought by him, it said.
“As far as marriage rites are concerned, per se, assuming a practice associated with one religion was followed/observed, the same, ceteris paribus, would not mean the person ‘professes’ the said other religion,” it said, adding that there was no dispute on the fact that Raja’s grandparents belong to the Parayan caste.
Located close to 50 km away from Idukki town, Devikulam is a small hill town with a significant area of tea plantations. The SC reserved seat also hosts a vast population from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Kerala’s Vizhinjam port inauguration brings CPI(M), BJP and Adani together; Congress out