Can India's Opposition alliance be called INDIA? Court wants parties to respond in a week

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court gave the Center and a number of opposition parties one more chance to reply to a petition asking them to stop using the abbreviation INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance).

A bench comprising Justice Manmeet PS Arora and Acting Chief Justice Manmohan ordered that the responses to the public interest lawsuit, which claimed that the parties were taking “undue advantage in the name of our country” by utilizing the INDIA acronym, be filed within a week.

The high court stated that every effort will be taken to hear the petition and make a decision on April 10 after declining to move up the hearing date.

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“The contesting respondents are given the last and final opportunity to file their replies within a week,” the bench said.

The petitioner, Girish Bharadwaj, applied to the court for an early hearing of the case, citing that it had been pending since August 2023, that the pleadings were incomplete, and that the Election Commission had already issued the election timetable.

The petitioner’s attorney, Vaibhav Singh, stated that the opposition parties and the federal government have previously been given eight opportunities to respond, but they have not done so yet.

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Advocate Sidhant Kumar informed the court that the ECI has already submitted its response to the case.

The central government’s attorney has asked the court to give them an additional week or ten days to file their response in November 2023.

There were “preliminary objections” against the plea, according to senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who represented nine political groups, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, and others. The matter has already been addressed by the Supreme Court.

The petitioner had previously gone to the high court to request an interim order prohibiting the respondent political alliance from using the national flag in conjunction with the slogan INDIA and to stop the use of the acronym by 26 political parties. In August of last year, the court had sent out notice of the petition.

The political parties which have been arrayed as respondents include Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Aam Aadmi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar), Shiv Sena (UBT), Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Apna Dal (Kamerawadi).

(With agency inputs)