HC voids Tomar’s 2015 win for providing false information

The Delhi High Court on Friday termed the election of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member of legislative assembly, Jitender Singh Tomar, as “null void”, for furnishing

The Delhi High Court on Friday termed the election of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member of legislative assembly, Jitender Singh Tomar, as “null void”, for furnishing false information about his educational qualification while filing his nomination for the 2015 Assembly elections.

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Tomar, who has been given a ticket for a second time from the Trinagar assembly seat in the Delhi elections, said the HC’s order does not imply disqualification.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw set aside Tomar’s election, saying that false declaration and vocation had resulted in “inducement and thwarted free exercise of electoral right of the voter”. The judge said that since Tomar was not a graduate and not eligible for the three-year LLB programme, his law degree could not exist and axiomatically, his enrolment with the Bar Council of Delhi is null and void.

“On first principles as a citizen and elector, I would want the election of the candidate who had lied qua his/ her educational qualification and vocation, to be set aside,” the judge said. He also said that Tomar’s nomination had been “improperly accepted”.

Tomar said the order will not stop him from filing nominations for the upcoming assembly elections. “As planned, I will still file my nomination papers as AAP’s candidate from Trinagar constituency on Saturday. The court has only set aside my election, it has not disqualified me. It hardly matters as there are only 20 days left in the term,” Tomar said.

The single-judge bench said that Tomar had “published statements of fact which were false and which he did not believe to be true in relation to his educational qualifications and to unduly influence the voters/electors in his election and which act of the respondent no.1 (Tomar) amounts to a corrupt practice.”