Apex court refuses to minister’s plea seeking rejection of election petition pending before Gujarat High Court
In a major blow to state education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, the Supreme Court has also refused to entertain his plea seeking rejection of an election petition against him pending before the Gujarat High Court. The minister had moved the apex court against the rejection of his plea by the high court and the division bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice R Subhash Reddy dismissed it on Monday.
The rejection of Chudasama's plea has paved the way for the hearing of the petition filed against him by his rival and Congress candidate Ashwin Rathod alleging that Chudasama won the assembly election through unfair means and his election be declared void.
Notably, high court's single judge bench of Justice Paresh Upadhyay, while rejecting the education minister's plea, had pronounced that Rathod's petition cannot be dismissed at the threshold and his contentions against Chudasama's election need to be tried. Interestingly, the minister had won the election by a wafer-thin margin of 327 votes and that too after the returning officer mysteriously rejected 429 votes through postal ballots, a number greater than the winning margin.
As per the case details, the Assembly elections for the Dholka constituency was held on December 14, 2017, and the results were declared on December 18. It was 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.
He had 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 was 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.
TOUGH TIMES
- Apex court refuses to minister’s plea seeking rejection of election petition pending before Gujarat High Court.
- The rejection of Chudasama’s plea has paved way for hearing of petition filed against him by his rival and Congress candidate, Ashwin Rathod.
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