New Delhi, June 7: The Supreme Court today advanced hearings on the stay on the Rajya Sabha elections to Wednesday from next Monday, as earlier fixed by a vacation bench that had passed the interim order.

The decision came after lawyers for the Election Commission, which had contested the order on Saturday, and the Union government met Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti and impressed upon him the urgency of the matter as the elections are on June 21.

The vacation bench had stayed the elections on a petition by columnist Kuldip Nayar, who contended that the practice of electing representatives from states they did not belong to was unconstitutional. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is from Punjab but was elected from Assam, tops the list of such persons.

Both the Centre and the poll panel argued that under Article 329(B) of the Constitution, courts could not interfere in the electoral process once polls had been declared through a notification. The commission had notified the polls to the Rajya Sabha from 14 states on the morning of June 4, the same day the vacation bench stayed the elections on the petition by Nayar, who recently retired as a nominated member of the House.

The Union of India, “through (the) law ministry”, in an application said electing representatives to the Rajya Sabha from states they do not belong to would not violate the basic feature of the Constitution — federalism — as contended by Nayar. It also justified the amendment to the Representation of People’s Act that paved the way for electing such persons.

The Centre and the poll panel argued that the stay order of the bench, which said the notification “shall not be given effect to” even if it had been already issued, went against several earlier verdicts of the apex court.

It was an agonising wait for Gopal Subramanyam, counsel for the Union of India, and S. Muralidhar, counsel for the poll panel, as the apex court did not take up the matter today. After waiting the whole morning session, Subramanyam and Muralidhar went to the Chief Justice’s chamber. They came out to tell the waiting reporters that the court has decided to hear the matter on June 9 instead of June 14.

The debate now will be on whether the order of the vacation bench would be given effect to or the constitutional position that no court could interfere with the election process once the notification has been issued.

In fact, the presiding judge of the vacation bench, Justice Ruma Pal, had observed that “if, prima facie, something is violative of the basic principle of the Constitution, we (the Supreme Court) can even issue an ex parte order”. In other words, an order with respect to or in the interests of one side only.

If taken to its conclusion, the interim order could lead to a constitutional crisis as a few Union ministers are yet to be elected to either house of Parliament.

Among such persons are home minister Shivraj Patil and power minister P.M. Sayeed.