The Delhi High Court on Tuesday gave green signal for holding fresh election to the Majnu Ka Tila Ward of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, upholding a single Bench judgment that had declared the election to it null and void last April.
A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjeev Khanna passed the judgment on appeals filed by the winner and his nearest rival from the Ward.
Vikas of the Congress had been declared elected from the Ward (78) in the municipal elections held in 2007.
Justice Muralidhar had declared the election to the Ward void on a petition by Vikas challenging a lower court judgment. He had also declared the seat vacant.
The lower court had set aside Vikas’s election to the local body and declared Satish Kumar of the BJP a winner.
Vikas had sought restoration of his membership while Satish Kumar had sought upholding of the lower court judgment in their separate appeals.
Vikas was a substitute candidate of the Congress in the Ward.
Satish Kumar, who had lost to Vikas in the election, had challenged the Congress candidate’s election in the lower court on the ground that his nomination papers did not carry the mandatory Forms A and B dealing with the authorisation of candidature of a contestant by the party concerned.
``He (Satish Kumar) will forthwith cease to function as a councillor. However, since he was functioning as councillor in terms of the impugned judgment, the relevant portion of which has been set aside only today, he need not be asked to reimburse any monetary benefit he might have enjoyed during this period. However, he will forthwith cease to receive any benefit as a councillor with immediate effect,’’ the Single Bench had said in its judgment.
