The Supreme Court today asked the Election Commission to decide within three months a complaint seeking freezing of Bahujan Samaj Party's election symbol 'elephant' for allegedly violating poll panel's instructions on use of party symbols.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia said that the Election Commission will first take its decision on the preliminary point concerning the maintainability of the complaint.

The bench said it was keeping the petition relating to the issue alive before it and any further proceedings will take place after it goes through the decision on the maintainability of the complaint by the EC.

It said that the question of seeking material from UP government would arise only after it decides on the validity of the order passed by the EC.
The court was hearing the plea of the EC that UP Chief Minister Mayawati was "coming in its way" of deciding on the "misuse" of BSP's party symbol.

The EC had alleged in its application that the UP government was not giving details about the construction of statues of elephants.

The apex court had on February 22 directed it to adjudicate whether installation of statues of Mayawati and elephants, which is BSP's election symbol, at various parks in the state, at the cost of public money was violative of election law.

The EC had said the reply given by state government on the alleged misuse of party symbol was not satisfactory.

It had said that the government did not supply the information regarding the number of statues of elephants and of Mayawati which were installed at public and private places using public funds between 2007 to 2010 along with the photographs and video recordings of such statues.

The EC had said the state government, which at first had stated that it was collecting information, took a "strange" stand later and questioned its jurisdiction in seeking such details.

The EC then approached the apex court seeking its direction to the state government to supply the information.

The state government has maintained that the statues were not the replica of the election symbol "elephant" alloted by the Commission to the BSP as the party's symbol shows an elephant with its trunk lowered while the statues have the trunk raised in a welcome posture which are found in many religious and historical places.

The apex court had asked the Commission to decide the issue after a PIL was filed in the court alleging that 60 statues of elephants were being installed by the Uttar Pradesh government at a cost of Rs 52.20 crore at public places by utilising state funds.

The PIL filed by two advocates in the apex court have accused the UP government of misusing public money for installation of statues of Dalit leaders, including Mayawati, and the party symbol at various places in the state.

The PIL had sought a direction to restrain the Mayawati government from installing her statues and those of elephants at public places and demanded a CBI probe into the alleged misuse of public funds.

The advocates had claimed that the total money used by the Mayawati government from the state budget for 2008-09 and 2009-10 for such projects was to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore.