The Supreme Court on Tuesday added to the woes of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis by reviving a complaint against him seeking criminal prosecution under the Representation of People Act for not disclosing pending criminal cases against him in his 2014 election affidavit. The complaint against him was lodged by a lawyer Satish Ukey in a Nagpur court, which dismissed it, followed by an order of the Bombay High Court on May 3, 2018, again rejecting the complaint. Ukey had appealed against the HC order in the apex court.
The apex court's direction has come at a time when Fadnavis is seeking re-election in the upcoming Assembly polls. However, a statement from the CM's office stated, "The SC order just states that the order be remanded back to the local court. There is no reference to investigating the CM or anything related to that."
Fadnavis, in his Form-26, had not disclosed two criminal cases in which a trial court took cognisance. The complaint by Ukey pointed out that any concealment of information in the election affidavit filed at the time of filing nomination is an offence punishable under Section 125A of the Representation of People (RP) Act 1951, prescribing a maximum punishment of six months.
There, Fadnavis has nothing to worry about, since to qualify as a case for disqualification, an elected legislator has to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for two or more years. But, what the case at hand has yielded is a formulation of law that any person contesting elections should disclose even those pending cases where a court of law has taken cognisance.
The bench said, "The complaint of the appellant (Ukey) will be considered afresh by the learned trial court from the stage where it was interdicted by the order of the trial court in May 2016."
The apex bench noted that two SC judges in Association for Democratic Reforms (2002) and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (2003) clearly mandate every contesting candidate to disclose cases where charge is framed or cognisance is taken by the court.
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