12 Feb 2024 5:19 AM GMT
The Supreme Court on Monday (February 12) dismissed the petition filed by K Babu, Congress MLA from Kerala, challenging the maintainability of the election petition filed by CPI(M) leader M Swaraj in the Kerala High Court challenging the former's election from Thrippunithura constituency in the 2021 assembly elections.
Babu had approached the Supreme Court challenging the Kerala High Court's order which rejected his preliminary objections to Swaraj's petition.
A bench comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and PV Sanjay Kumar observed that the objections raised by Babu have no merits and that the High Court's order warranted no interference.
Swaraj, who lost to Babu in the 2021 assembly polls, approached the High Court seeking to declare the election of Babu null and void. The allegation against Babu is that he used corrupt practices that materially affected the result of the election by appealing to Hindu voters based on religion.
Babu had filed a plea before the High Court raising a preliminary objection that the election petition filed by Swaraj suffered from material defects due to non-compliance of the provisions of Section 81,82, 83 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and ought to be rejected. The High Court however decided to proceed with the trial of the election main petition against Babu.
In its order dated 29th March last year, the Kerala High Court had refused to entertain the preliminary objection of Babu and decided to proceed with the election petition. It is alleged that Babu distributed slips to Hindu Voters with the picture of Lord Ayyappa with an inscription that said "your vote is for Ayyappa”.
The preliminary objection raised by Babu before the High Court was that although the election petition was presented within 45 days, the defects in the petition were cured beyond the period of 45 days. For this reason, the petition failed to comply with Section 81,82 and 83 of the RP Act and was liable to be dismissed, it was contended. It was pointed out that sufficient number of copies of the petition were not furnished and the copies were not duly attested to be true copies and the defects were cured only belatedly. The High Court however, found the defects to be trivial and decided to proceed with the petition.
Case Title: K. Babu V. M. Swaraj, SLP (C) No. 15320/2023