Article 329

India's framers wanted elections to run on a fixed timetable without being paused or derailed by court cases filed midway. Before Independence and during the drafting of the Constitution, there was concern that if any voter or candidate could rush to a court at any stage — during nominations, polling, or counting — elections could be delayed indefinitely through litigation. So the Constitution created a special, self-contained system: election disputes are decided later, after voting is over, through a dedicated election petition process, keeping the electoral machinery independent and time-bound.

The Supreme Court's early and most influential ruling was N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer (1952), which held that the word 'election' in Article 329(b) covers the entire process — from the notification calling the election right up to the declaration of the result — not just the final polling day. So courts cannot intervene at any intermediate stage (like rejection of a nomination) through writ petitions; the only remedy is an election petition filed after the process ends. Later, in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978), the Court reaffirmed and refined this bar, while clarifying the limited situations (such as challenges to the Election Commission's general powers outside the election process) where ordinary judicial review might still apply. Together, these judgments have kept Article 329 as a strong, narrowly-tailored shield protecting the election process from mid-stream litigation.

• Myth: Courts can never look into anything about an election.
  Fact: Courts can still review elections — but only afterward, through an election petition, not by stepping in during the process itself.
• Myth: This Article lets the government rig elections without any check.
  Fact: It doesn't remove accountability; it simply channels election disputes into a specific legal process (election petitions) instead of ordinary court cases filed at any time.