The newly appointed Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court sitting along with Justice Sandeep Mehta recently dismissed a petition seeking directions to restrain political leaders from entering religious sites during elections. 

The petitioner contended that political leaders and political parties shall be stopped from seeking votes in the name of religion, caste, community, language or entering religious sites during election campaigns but the court dismissed and observed that "It is settled law that successive writ petitions for the same cause of action are not maintainable and that filing of second writ petition for the same purpose is an abuse of the process of law."

It is noteworthy that such a petition filed earlier by the same petitioner was dismissed in October 2018 while observing that "seeking vote in the name of religion, caste, community, language etc. is statutorily prohibited and, therefore, no general directions in this regard are required."

The Court finding that the petitioner had not submitted any representation to the Election Commission, held that the grievance of the petitioner in this regard can be appropriately health with by the Eletion Commission of India and ordered In view of the above, we are not inclined to exercise our discretionary jurisdiction in this writ petition and dismiss the writ petition with the directions to the Chief Election Commissioner of India to objectively consider and pass appropriate order on the representation of the petitioner, if any, made in this connection earlier."