The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday once again criticised law minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama during the trial of the election petition filed by rival Congress candidate Ashwin Rathod challenging his assembly poll win. The single judge bench of Justice Paresh Upadhyay also reiterated that it is an irony that the law minister is raising doubt on the impartiality of the court in his affidavit before the SC, which is a serious issue.
The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday once again criticised law minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama during the trial of the election petition filed by rival Congress candidate Ashwin Rathod challenging his assembly poll win. The single judge bench of Justice Paresh Upadhyay also reiterated that it is an irony that the law minister is raising doubt on the impartiality of the court in his affidavit before the SC, which is a serious issue.
Notably, during the ongoing trial on Wednesday, the examination of Dhaval Jani, the then returning officer of Dholka constituency from where Chudasama has won the assembly election by a wafer-thin margin of 327 votes, was supposed to be carried out. He was earlier asked by the court to provide details of when he had counted the paper ballots and informed the result. Jani had said he would have to see the CCTV footage for the same. On Wednesday, Jani submitted that he is yet to get it from the collector and sought two days, which was granted. It was at this point that the court remarked that it has more trust in the returning officer than the minister, who tried to raise doubt on the impartiality of the court. It also said that it can give relaxation to the returning officer, but not the minister.
Interestingly, the minister is trying tooth and nail to stall the proceedings in the election petition of Rathod fearing that he might lose the case. As per Rathod's plea, the minister had won the state election from Dholka constituency by a wafer-thin margin of 327 votes and that too after the returning officer mysteriously rejected 429 votes through postal ballets, a number greater than the winning margin. It is the contention of Rathod that the rejection of 429 votes received through postal ballots by the returning officer was illegal and resulted in Chudasama winning the election.
Rathod has also contended that the then deputy collector of Dholka, Gaurang Prajapati, who was supposed to be the returning officer as per his designation, was removed after the election code of conduct was implemented. In place of Prajapati, one Dhavan Jani was posted at Dholka with an aim to increase Chudasama's prospects of winning the election. Another argument of Rathod is that although the standing instruction of the Election Commission of India is that the postal ballots are to be counted before counting of votes on EVMs, the same was not followed. In fact, the postal ballots were counted only after counting of the EVM votes and after knowing that there was a narrow margin between the two contesting candidates.
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