The Supreme Court today refused to set aside a Karnataka High Court order, which disqualified J. Shantha, Member of Parliament from Bellary (ST) Lok Sabha seat, but allowed her to attend the Parliamentary proceedings without exercising her voting right or availing any perquisite.
A Bench of Justices H.L. Gokhale and Ranjana Prakash Desai gave the partial relief to the MP, while admitting her special leave petition against the June 11 order of the High Court, which had set aside her election for the electoral malpractices allegedly committed by her.
Ms. Shantha, who defeated N.Y. Hanumanthappa of the Congress in the election, is the sister of Independent MLA B. Sriramulu, who has floated his BSR party.
Appearing for Ms. Shantha, counsel Maninder Singh and Balaji Srinivasan submitted that the High Court fell into error in setting aside her election and directing recounting of votes.
“The High Court had acted in a manner which is not known to the election law. There is no provision under the law by which an election is set aside and re-counting is ordered,” Singh told the Bench.
On June 11, a single judge of the High Court, Justice H. Billappa, had set aside Ms. Shantha’s election on a petition by Congress worker M. Chandregowda, seeking her disqualification on the allegation that irregularities were committed during the counting of votes.
Observing that her election in 2009 had “materially affected” the result of the election, the court ordered re-counting to be completed within four weeks.
Mr. Chandregowda, in his petition, had also accused Shantha of producing a false caste certificate. He had submitted that Ms. Shantha, who belonged to the Boya community, which comes under the backward community in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, had submitted a caste certificate of the Hindu Valmiki community, which is a Scheduled Tribe since Bellary is a reserved constituency for Scheduled Tribes.
However, this ground of the petitioner was not considered by the court. — PTI
Shanta’s reaction
Bellary Staff Correspondent writes
Ms. Shanta has welcomed the Supreme Court order. “I am yet to go through the copy of the order. Based on the information I got from advocates, I am happy that the apex court has given me relief and have allowed me to continue as Member of Parliament,” she told mediapersons here on Tuesday.
When it was pointed out that she could not exercise her voting rights and avail perquisites, Ms. Shanta said that she would consult her advocates with regard to filing a revision petition seeking voting rights.
