The Delhi High Court on Friday set aside the Election Commission’s (EC) order holding former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan guilty of filing incorrect expenses for the 2009 Assembly elections.
The EC in its July 13 order had also issued a show cause notice to Mr. Chavan seeking his response within 20 days on why he should not be disqualified for the same.
“Election Commission’s July 13, 2014, order is set aside,” Justice Suresh Kait said.
In its show cause notice, the poll panel had asked Mr. Chavan why he should not be disqualified for failing to give his true and correct expenses incurred in last Assembly polls.
But the High Court had on July 28 stayed the Commission’s show cause notice to Mr. Chavan.
Mr. Chavan had won the 2009 Assembly polls from Bhokar in Maharashtra’s Nanded Lok Sabha constituency.
Independent candidate Madhavrao Kinhalkar, who had filed the complaint against Mr. Chavan with the Commission, had submitted before the Supreme Court that “prima facie the High Court has not given reasons for staying the EC order”.
On July 24, Mr. Chavan had moved the High Court against EC’s July 13 order seeking that it be set aside to the extent that it holds that he had failed to lodge the poll expense account in the time and manner required under the law. He had also sought quashing of the show cause notice.
