Meenakshi Natarajan: Gift of a worthy ‘MP’ of the Rajya Sabha

Mismanagement of the Congress and the clever BJP

The legal principles governing the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 154 of the CrPC (now Section 173 of the BNSS) operate on a different legal track than the rules governing candidate nominations under election law. The BJP filed an objection during the scrutiny of nomination papers, alleging that she had concealed material information regarding a private criminal complaint pending against her in a Hyderabad/Telangana court.

The Procedural Law

Under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) / Section 173 of the BharatiyaNagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), a police officer is legally bound to record the information provided.

Supreme Court Precedent: Preliminary Inquiry:

Police cannot conduct a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR if a serious crime is clearly disclosed. However, if the information is vague or unclear, a limited preliminary inquiry may be conducted to determine if a cognizable offense occurred.

What Happens If Police Refuse?

If a local police station refuses to register your FIR, there are several legal remedies available:

1. Approach the Superintendent of Police (SP):
2. One can send the substance of your complaint in writing via registered post to the SP or Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP).
3. If they are satisfied that the information discloses a cognizable offense, they will direct the investigation.
4. One can file a private complaint directly with the jurisdictional Judicial Magistrate under Section 156(3) of the CrPC / BNSS, requesting the court to order the police to register an FIR and investigate.
5. Under the Supreme Court’s guidelines, police officers who wrongfully refuse to register a mandatory FIR can face departmental disciplinary action and even penal consequences.

(Check the Supreme Court of India or refer to advisories from the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding compulsory FIR registration)

Damages caused by managers

The disqualification resulted in a direct loss of a winnable Rajya Sabha seat for the Congress party, highlighting institutional and strategic oversights between the central leadership in Delhi and the state apparatus in Hyderabad: a) Form 26 guidelines updated by judicial precedents since 2018 require a highly conservative approach to disclosures, demanding details on all pending matters, even where charges are not framed.  b) The central screening committee in Delhi failed to flag that Natarajan, who was serving as the AICC in-charge for Telangana, had been served a formal court notice in Hyderabad in late 2025.  c) Leaving the field blank instead of providing a defensive disclosure (stating that a notice was received but no cognizance was taken) left the nomination legally vulnerable.

Case of sexual harassment of 2022

NOTE: ACCUSED 4, NATARAJAN, WAS NOT IN CHARGE OF TELANGANA

It was a private criminalcomplaint of sexual harassment against a Congress Party office holder of Narayanpet in 2022. Natarajan had received a court notice/summons in October 2025. The ‘fact’ of the case before the court cannot be ignored without discussing legal points, whether there was cognizance or not, or a valid FIR or not, etc., and the state leadership possessed the records of her response to the court notice. The accused was not arrested, and no action was taken after two attempts at court notices. Whether there was a viable dispute that could have been quashed or sorted out at a different level does not matter. The point to be noted is: Meenakshi Natarajan was not in charge of Telangana from the AICC, still, she was listed as 4^th accused.

The Drama in Court

While Meenakshi Nataran was preparing the nomination in Madhya Pradesh, the atmosphere at the Nampalli court (Hyderabad) was highly charged. The complainant arrived to record her statement, only to be met by a massive mobilization of Congress workers. She expressed immense fear, stating that she was being followed by unidentified individuals since the morning and that attempts were made to block her auto-rickshaw from reaching the court.

Amidst the TV cameras, when questioned by reporters about how the case details were leaked all the way to Madhya Pradesh just in time for the BJP to file an objection during nomination scrutiny, the complainant denied leaking them herself. She revealed a crucial detail: upon arriving at the court entrance, she was approached by an individual linked as a Personal Assistant (PA) to a prominent MLA, who asked about her case file. While she stopped short of directly blaming him for the leak, she challenged authorities to review the court premises’ CCTV footage to uncover who accessed the files and passed them to political opponents.

Lack of jurisdiction of the Nampalli Court

While the Supreme Court was closing its doors in Delhi, the actual private complaint that triggered the disqualification came up for a hearing at the Nampalli Court in Hyderabad. In a striking twist of irony, the Nampalli Court ruled that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear the matter because the accused included public representatives.

The Court returned the petition to the complainant, directing them to approach the designated Special Court for MP/MLAs. Legally speaking, because the Nampalli court returned the petition due to a lack of jurisdiction, as of that specific day, there was technically no active case pending against Natarajan in that court. Had this jurisdictional error been settled days earlier, her nomination might have sailed through. However, the political and procedural damage was already done.

The Nampalli Court’s Definitive Decision

The Nampalli court categorically stated the case did not fall under its purview because of a lack of jurisdiction. The court returned the docket to the petitioner, instructing them to re-file it before the designated MP/MLA Special Court. Ironically, this meant that on the day her nomination was rejected for “concealing a case,” the court handling that case declared it couldn’t legally entertain it. However, the disqualification could not be undone.

High Drama and Intimidation Claims by the Complainant

A massive crowd of around 50 Congress workers descended upon the Nampalli court, which the complainant alleged was an attempt to manipulate the judiciary t.hrough intimidation. There were security threats. The complainant openly stated to the media that she feared for her life, alleging that her auto-rickshaw was chased and that she had requested security from the DGP three months prior.

The complainant fiercely defended herself against allegations of being a BJP pawn, stating she has been single-handedly fighting her legal battle for four years without political alignment.

“Information Leak” The MLA-PA Connection: The script highlights a mysterious leak. The complainant noted that a PA to a well-known MLA met her right at the court entrance and asked for her file details.

The CCTV Trail:

The reporter and the complainant both pointed to the court’s Section Office and entrance cameras. The complainant asserted that checking the CC TV Footage would conclusively reveal the identity of the political operatives who leaked the Telangana case documents to the opposition in Madhya Pradesh.

The entire drama underscores a bitter political irony. Meenakshi Natarajan lost her Rajya Sabha seat due to an omission regarding a private complaint, yet, on the very same day, the handling court threw out that very complaint due to a lack of jurisdiction, technically clearing her record at Nampalli but leaving her politically stranded.

Problem of incomplete affidavit!

During the scrutiny of nomination papers in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP filed a strategic objection. They alleged that Natarajan had concealed material information regarding a pending private criminal complaint in a Hyderabad court.

The Returning Officer (RO) rejected her nomination on the grounds of submitting an incomplete affidavit. The RO exercised statutory powers under the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, ruling that candidates must declare all pending criminal proceedings of which they have active knowledge. Because she had already replied to the court notice in Telangana, her knowledge of the case was established, making the omission a substantial defect. While she had responded to the notice via written submissions, she marked “not applicable” or left the criminal cases column blank on Form 26, arguing that no formal charges had been framed.

It was totally the discretion of RO, and he had to follow orders of the boss, and that person may be expected to follow their boss. And still we call it ‘discretion’, what a wonder! It got stuck up with the process before the Returning Officer. He has complete discretion, exercised and rejected.

On Article 32

The respondents argued that instead of approaching the High Court for jurisdiction over EC matters, the petitioner rushed directly to the Supreme Court, without exhausting the proper remedy. Following the RO’s rejection, Natarajan approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution, arguing that the rejection was patently erroneous. Her counsel, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, has argued…

• That Section 33A of the Representation of the People (RP) Act only mandates the disclosure of cases where a competent court has formally framed charges.
• It was a private complaint.
• He argued that it was the Telangana matter
• It was at a pre-cognizance stage (under Section 223 of the BNSS).
• This does not equate to a registered FIR or an active prosecution.

In fact, his core legal argument was that under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a candidate is only mandatorily required to disclose criminal antecedents if a competent court has formally framed charges for an offense punishable by two or more years of imprisonment. In Natarajan’s case, there was no FIR and no charge sheet; it was merely a private complaint where a local court had issued a preliminary notice/summons.

Expert opinion

After all these arguments, the Supreme Court Bench (Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Atul S. Chandurkar) dismissed her writ petition on maintainability rather than diving into the merits of the criminal complaint itself. 

Supreme Court advocate, former Advisor to the Governor of Karnataka, and Constitutional expert Vikas Bansode stated, in a conversation with this author, that registration of a First Information Report (FIR) is mandatory under the law if the information given to the police discloses the commission of a cognizable offense. Police officers have no discretion to refuse to register an FIR in such situations. The landmark Constitution Bench ruling in the case of Lalita Kumari vs. Govt. of U.P. established that mandatory registration applies unequivocally to any cognizable offense. Bansode explained that the police cannot conduct a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR if a serious crime is clearly disclosed. However, if the information is vague or unclear, a limited preliminary inquiry may be conducted to determine if a cognizable offense occurred.  Under the Supreme Court’s guidelines, police officers who wrongfully refuse to register a mandatory FIR can face departmental disciplinary action and even penal consequences. It is far from the efficiency of the Congress party of Telangana, rather than the management of technical precision of the BJP, especially in Madhya Pradesh.

Why did SC open the floodgate of litigation?

The apex Court relied strictly on Article 329(b) of the Constitution and the landmark 1952 six-judge bench precedent in N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer. The constitutional framework bars courts from interrupting or delaying an ongoing election process once the poll notification is issued.

The Bench noted that allowing writ petitions against nomination rejections would open a floodgate of litigation, forcing courts to subjectively distinguish between “glaringly illegal” rejections and ordinary ones. The Supreme Court ruled that the only legal remedy available to a candidate whose nomination is rejected is to file an Election Petition before the High Court after the entire election process concludes.

That means, they skipped two stages and jumped to the apex Court. First, the Congress managers and their lawyers should have let the process be completed and then have approached the High Court; instead, they rushed to the Supreme Court.  However, it was not about the merits of whether the RO’s decision was right or wrong. Legally relying strictly on Article 329(b) of the Constitution, the Apex Court ruled that it cannot interfere in the middle of an active election process. The bench stated that once an election notification is issued, the process cannot be stalled or altered by a writ petition. The court made it clear that her only legal recourse is to wait for the election to conclude and then challenge it via an Election Petition in the High Court.

Is it a simple omission or a conspiracy?

The dramatic politics around the Meenakshi Natarajan Rajya Sabha nomination crisis is a textbook example of “procedural misfortune” where legal jurisdiction, high-stakes election scrutiny, and political maneuvering converged to create a catastrophic outcome for the Congress party. A lack of synchronized communication between the Telangana state unit and the high command in Delhi meant the election team in Madhya Pradesh was caught unprepared when the BJP produced the physical proof of the Telangana court proceedings during scrutiny.

Because Natarajan was the sole candidate fielded by the Congress for that specific vacancy, her disqualification allowed the opposition candidate to win the Rajya Sabha seat completely uncontested. The party lost a critical seat in the Upper House entirely due to a technical, preventable paperwork disqualification rather than a lack of legislative numbers.