Dispute over ballot boxes: Jega, INEC lose bid to stay judgment

Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has  lost in its bid to stay the judgment of a Federal High Court, Abuja, which restrained it from further using transparent ballot boxes for elections, without the consent of the patent right owner.

Trial judge, Justice Adamu Bello, in his ruling, declined to stay the judgment.

INEC and its chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had asked the court to stay the execution pending the determination of their appeal, challenging the judgment.

It will be recalled that the court had, in its judgment of  June 5, 2012, held, among others, that the plaintiff, Bedding Holding Limited, owns a valid and subsisting patent rights over transparent ballot boxes and electronic collapsible transparent ballot boxes being used for elections in the country.

The judge voided the rights over similar inventions purportedly issued subsequently to three firms, Emchai Limited, Tambco United Nigeria Ltd and Anowat Project and Resources Ltd, by the Registrar of Patent, for being illegal.

Justice Bello, in the judgment, also granted an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the defendants and any other person from utilising or dealing with the patented boxes of the plaintiff, “except with the express and prior consent, licence and authority of the plaintiff to that effect.”

Refusing INEC’s application, the court held that the reliefs granted in the judgment were  mainly declarative and were incapable of being stayed.

Justice Bello, who berated INEC and Jega for acting in disregard of the court’s order, frowned at the decision of the electoral body and its Chairman to deploy the same ballot boxes for the governorship elections held last year on July 10 in Edo State and on October 20 in Ondo State, without the consent of the plaintiff and in disregard of the court’s subsisting order made on June 5, 2012.

The court held that it was an irony that INEC and Jega would approach his court for an indulgence, having willingly disregarded and flouted its order.

“The use of the ballot boxes has soiled the applicants’ hands. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. They cannot, therefore, seek the indulgence of the court having flouted its orders,” the court  said.

The court, meanwhile, stayed proceedings in the contempt proceedings pending against INEC and its principal officers for using the ballot boxes without the patent rights owner’s consent.*



Vanguard