Dealing a blow to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis days before the Assembly election, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that he face trial for suppressing information in his 2014 election documents about two forgery and criminal defamation cases pending in a Nagpur court.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose ordered the trial court to continue with the case against Mr. Fadnavis under Section125-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The decision came on an appeal filed by Satish Ukey, a lawyer, against a Bombay High Court decision. The High Court had set aside a sessions court go-ahead to try Mr. Fadnavis. The judgment by Chief Justice Gogoi held that a “contesting candidate is mandated to furnish information concerning the cases in which a Competent Court has taken cognisance, along with the cases in which charges have been framed.”
The court interpreted Section 33-A of the 1951 Act to hold that ‘information’ to be disclosed by a candidate includes cases of which a court has already taken cognisance.
It held that the election affidavit under Form 26 of the Conduct of Election Rules of 1961, submitted to the poll officer along with the nomination papers, should detail not only cases in which charges had been filed but also those which had been taken cognisance of.
“There is no element of doubt that, subsequent to the substitution of Form 26 in 2012, the new Form 26 (as in vogue at the time of the elections in 2014), mandates the disclosure of information by the contesting candidate of not only case(s) in which charges have been framed but also case(s) in which cognisance has been taken by the court,” the judgment said.
Chief Justice Gogoi, writing for the Bench, observed that a bare perusal of Form-26 “mandates disclosure of information by the contesting candidate regarding cases that are pending against him in which cognisance has been taken by the court.”
Criminal complaint
Trouble began for Mr. Fadnavis when Mr. Ukay filed a criminal complaint before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Nagpur, for registration of a case against him under Section 125-A of the 1951 Act.
