Bengaluru: SC rejects plea by BJP candidate in R R Constituency

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by Muniraju Gowda, BJP candidate from R R Nagar constituency in Bengaluru against the Karnataka High Court's order striking off his plea for declaring him elected due to alleged corrupt practice adopted by winning Congress candidate Munirathna in 2018 legislative Assembly poll.

The constituency is set to see the bypoll on November 3 as Munirathna got disqualified in November, 2019 following his resignation in July, 2019. He subsequently switched side to the ruling BJP.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian upheld the HC's interim orders passed by Justice Krishna S Dixit on March 20, 2020.

"Once it is found that neither the original election petition, nor the amended election petition contains any pleading of material facts, there was no alternative for the

High Court but to strike off prayer for declaring him winner," the bench said.

Senior advocate Sekhar Naphade and advocate Shailesh Madiyal, appearing for Gowda, said despite the disqualification of Munirathna, the BJP candidate can seek declaration that the Congress candidate indulged in corrupt practice and so, he should be declared as duly elected to the seat.

"Technically, the counsel is right, since the involvement of a person in corrupt practices, in an election, does not get washed away, by his subsequent resignation," the bench said.

However, the top court pointed out there was no materials facts to support the plea by Gowda.

It said there were 14 candidates in the fray. Gowda secured 82,572 votes, while Munirathna secured 1,08,064 votes.

Section 101 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 could be invoked if the election petitioner satisfied the court that but for the votes obtained by the returned

candidate by corrupt practices, he would have obtained a majority of the valid votes, the court said.

The HC here rejected Gowda's plea to bring in additional material facts in support of his plea, by amending contents of his election petition, saying it was belated move coming after 18 months.

Gowda sought to bring on record allegations related to illegal collection of original voter cards, manipulating fake Election Identity Card by the Congress candidate.