The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a plea seeking cancellation of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar‘s membership of the state legislative council for allegedly concealing a pending criminal case against him.
A bench of Justices Justice Dipak Misra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar said that they will look into the matter after petitioner advocate, M L Sharma sought an urgent hearing of his plea. They said that they would see when the matter could be listed for hearing.
The plea, was filed on Monday and alleged that there was a criminal case against the JD(U) chief, wherein he was accused of killing a local Congress leader, Sitaram Singh, and injuring four others, ahead of Lok Sabha by-election to the Barh constituency in 1991.
The petitioner has also requested the CBI to lodge an FIR against Nitish in the case.
“Respondent number 2 (Election Commission), despite knowing facts about his (Kumar’s) criminal case, did not cancel his membership of the house and respondent (Kumar) still enjoys constitutional office till date,” he said.
Stating it mandatory for candidates to disclose criminal cases against them in their affidavits, he has also sought cancellation of JD(U) supremo’s membership as per the Election Commission’s 2002 order.
He claimed that Kumar did not disclose the criminal case that was pending against him in affidavits since 2004, except for 2012.
