The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday (August 14) dismissed the plea moved by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi challenging the election of Samajwadi Party MP Ram Bhuwal Nishad from the Sultanpur Lok Sabha constituency.
Mr. Nishad had defeated Ms. Gandhi, a six-time MP from Uttar Pradesh, by over 43,000 votes in the recent general election, whose results were declared on June 4.
The Bench of Justice Rajan Roy found that Ms. Gandhi’s election petition was filed after the prescribed 45-day period for such challenges, and was thus barred by limitation.
Seven-day delay
In her plea, Ms. Gandhi claimed that Mr. Nishad had concealed information about his criminal history in his election affidavit. She alleged that the SP MP has 12 criminal cases pending against him but had only disclosed eight of them, and hence requested the court to declare his election as ‘void’.
Ms. Gandhi had approached the court with a seven-day delay. In the court, her counsel submitted that the delay happened because she was hospitalised.
“As per Section 81 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, an election petition can be filed within 45 days from, but not earlier than the date of election of the returned candidate or if there are more than one returned candidate at the election and dates of their election are different, the later of those two dates,” the court noted, dismissing the petition.
