Court okays graft plea against Speaker

The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted sanction to a BJP leader to pursue his plea against the state assembly Speaker Yoganand Shastri's election in 2008.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted sanction to a BJP leader to pursue his plea against the state assembly Speaker Yoganand Shastri's election in 2008.

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Justice VK Jain allowed BJP's Sher Singh Dagar to proceed with his complaint that Shastri employed corrupt means to get elected. The court also directed Dagar to deposit Rs 50,000 with the court as cost since he had failed to place additional documents to prove his allegations at the outset.

Dagar, who had lost to Shastri in the 2008 assembly polls from Mehrauli constituency, had sought to give more details on

the allegations made by him against the Congress leader. In his petition, Dagar had alleged that Shastri, along with his

agents and workers, had appealed to the Muslim and Jat voters to vote for him, on grounds of race, community and religion and had distributed liquor and sarees among them.

Apart from this, Dagar had also alleged that some voters had cast their votes more than once in the same constituency (Mehrauli) and some had voted in other constituencies as well.

Shastri had opposed the application, saying the plea was filed only after he sought dismissal of the petition on the ground that it did not contain any details of the alleged corrupt practices by him.

The court, however, rejected the senior Congress leader’s contention.