THE MP High Court on Tuesday dismissed two applications of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking quashing of the election petition filed against him by Congress leader Raj Kumar Patel.
Patel has filed a petition seeking to set aside the election of Chouhan from Budhni constituency, alleging that Chouhan had resorted to malpractices to win the by-election.
On August 31, the HC had turned down Chouhan’s application seeking dismissal of Patel’s petition against him on grounds that it wasn’t filed in the stipulated time.
While dismissing the CM’s applications, the HC observed that the issues mentioned in the election petition fit for trial and discloses cause of action.
The HC turned down one application of Chouhan to dismiss the election petition on ground that Patel has used a word ‘respondents’ in his affidavit filed along with the petition whereas he should have used ‘respondent’ since there is single respondent in the petition. On this the HC said the defect in the affidavit is trivial and an opportunity can be given to the petitioner to remove the defect.
While rejecting the second application of Chouhan, demanding striking down of certain paragraphs of the petition, HC said the facts mentioned in the election petition are not vexatious or frivolous.
{{/usCountry}}While rejecting the second application of Chouhan, demanding striking down of certain paragraphs of the petition, HC said the facts mentioned in the election petition are not vexatious or frivolous.
{{/usCountry}}Justice A K Saxena granted a week time to Patel to remove the defect in the affidavit and granted ten days time to Chouhan to file his reply. The court fixed the hearing for November 3 for framing of issues.
Chouhan had defeated Patel in Budhni by a margin of 36,525 votes.