The Election Commission (EC) has disqualified Madhya Pradesh minister Narottam Mishra for three years over paid news charges, holding him guilty of not giving a true account of expenses incurred in the 2008 assembly polls.
The Election Commission (EC) has disqualified Madhya Pradesh minister Narottam Mishra for three years over paid news charges, holding him guilty of not giving a true account of expenses incurred in the 2008 assembly polls.
Disqualifying Mishra, a Cabinet minister, from contesting elections for three years following a complaint against him, the commission also used some strong words against paid news, calling it a "cancerous menace" that is assuming "alarming proportions" in the electoral landscape. His election from the Datia Assembly constituency also stands void.
A full bench of the Election Commission comprising Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and Election Commissioners A K Joti and O P Rawat in its order indicting Mishra unseated him under various sections of the Representation of the People Act(RPA). The 69-page order was issued yesterday.
Mishra, who won from Datia assembly constituency, is the minister for water resources and public relations and is the chief spokesperson of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
Rajendra Bharti, the main complainant in the case, had first sent a complaint to the EC about 8 years back in 2009.
The order said all the 42 news items, that appeared in five Hindi dailies, were "extremely biased in favour of" Mishra, adding its findings also strengthened the conclusion that he "knowingly participated or took advantage of the expenditure on such advertisements" that appeared as news in the publications.
The EC order sparked a demand for Mishra's resignation from the Congress while the minister said he would challenge it before the MP High Court. Miahra rejected the demand for his resignation.
"The Commission finds that irrespective of whether the alleged expenditure when added to the respondent's reported account, breaches the permissible limit or not, the fact remains that the respondent has not only knowingly submitted a false account of expenses, but also attempted to circumvent the legally prescribed limit on expenditure.
Such attempts need to be curbed with strong measures and visited with exemplary sanctions and restore the balance in the electoral playing field," the order indicting Mishra said.
Accordingly, it said, the Commission declares that Mishra stands disqualified for three years from the date of this order under section 10A read with sections 77 and 78 of the RP Act for failure to lodge his account of election expenses in the manner required by the law and for having no good reason or justification for such failure.
"In view of the EC order, he should immediately resign from the Cabinet," the leader of opposition, Ajay Singh, told
(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
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