In what comes as a set back to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Supreme Court set aside the clean chit given to him by the Bombay High Court in a case alleging furnishing false information in the election affidavit submitted during 2014 assembly polls.
The bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose observed that prima facie case under Section 125 of the Representation of Peoples Act was made out against Fadnavis, and directed the trial court to proceed with the case.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in July reserved the order after hearing both the parties. The bench noted that Fadnavis had not disclosed two cases pending against him.
Responding to Ukey’s plea, Fadnavis’ counsel had earlier said that pendency of cases is not required to be mentioned in nomination papers as in these cases, charges were not framed against the BJP leader. He said that as per guidelines, only cases where charges have been framed against the accused are required to be mentioned.
He had said that even the Bombay High Court had dismissed Ukey’s plea, saying that a candidate has to disclose any pending criminal cases only if charges have been framed against him by a competent court.
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