Gwalior/Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The decision of the Gwalior High Court has set off a political storm in the state. The court has nullified the election of the Congress legislator, Mukesh Malhotra, from the Vijaypur assembly constituency.
A bench of the high court comprising Justice G A Ahluwalia gave the verdict on a petition filed by BJP candidate and former minister Ramniwas Rawat.
Rawat, who won the assembly election in 2023, switched over to the BJP before the 2024 Lok Sabha election and became a minister in the new government.
A by-election was held in 2024 because the Vijaypur seat fell vacant after Rawat’s defection to the BJP.
In the by-election, the Congress fielded Malhotra against Rawat, who, despite being a minister, lost the election.
After declaring the election of Malhotra nul and void, the high court declared Rawat a legislator from the Vijaipur constituency.
In the affidavit submitted with the nomination form for the by-election, Malhotra did not mention all criminal cases registered against him in Vijaipur.
In his petition, Rawat alleged that there were six criminal cases against him, but he mentioned only two cases in the affidavit.
Rawat attached the evidence of all six court cases to the petition.
Considering Rawat’s evidence, the court nullified the election of Malhotra and gave him two weeks to appeal to the higher court.
Rawat said he had filed the petition on the grounds of the decisions taken on the electoral reforms.
Had Malhotra given proper information in the affidavit filed during the by-election, he would have lost the election, Rawat said.
Congress to move SC
An RS member and senior lawyer, Vivek Tankha, has said the party will appeal to the Supreme Court against the high court order. He said there may have been some mistakes in giving information, but it did not mean that any irregularity was committed in the election.
MPCC president Jitu Patwari also said the party would appeal to the SC against the HC order.
The BJP welcomes the verdict.
The BJP’s state unit president, Hemant Khandelwal, said the party welcomed the high court verdict, which would be followed.
Cases Malhotra did not mention
“A case was registered against Mukesh Malhotra under the Indian Forests Act under section 26 A 1 66. In this case, the CJM court sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 7,000 on him in February 2020.
“He was awarded imprisonment for six months and imposed a fine of Rs 500 under Sections 323, 294, 252, and 186 under IPC in 2015.
A case was registered against him under RCT 157/2013.
He did not mention another case from which Malhotra was acquitted in 2023.
