Barred By Limitation: Allahabad HC Rejects BJP Leader Maneka Gandhi's Plea Against Sultanpur MP's Election

A bench of Justice Rajan Roy found the election plea to be barred by limitation, holding that Gandhi's election plea had been filed in contravention of Section 81 r/w S. 86 of the Representation of People Act, 1951. It may be noted that Gandhi had moved the election petition with a seven-day delay.

The single judge had reserved its orders on the maintainability of the plea (on August 5) after hearing Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra (appearing for Maneka Gandhi), assisted by Advocate Prashant Singh Atal on the point of limitation as prescribed in Section 81 of the Representation of People Act 1951. 

Further, Section 86 of the 1951 Act requires the High Courts to dismiss election petitions that do not comply with Sections 81, 82, and 117.

Nishad defeated Gandhi (then sitting MP, Sultanpur) by 43K+ votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha Elections 2024. While Nishad got 4,44,330 votes, Gandhi managed to get 4,01,156 votes, leading to her defeat.

In her plea, Gandhi accused Nishad of not disclosing the pending criminal cases (in his nomination form) against him. Gandhi claims that Nishad while filing Form-26 during the election process for the Sultanpur-38 Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 elections, disclosed only 8 criminal cases, whereas there are actually 12 cases pending against him.

The petition highlights that the non-disclosure or deliberate omission of criminal cases constitutes corrupt practice under Section 100 of the Representation of People Act (RPA), 1951. Gandhi has argued that Nishad's election should be declared void based on this allegation alone.

"...the returned candidate (Nishad) deliberately did not submit his full detailed criminal antecedents. The returned candidate has a known criminal antecedents of 12 cases whereas in the affidavit filed he has only mentioned 8 (eight) criminal cases and deliberately omitted 4 (four) criminal cases. The returned candidate has played a fraud on the public and is involved in corrupt practices and thus his election is thereby liable to be disqualified under Section 100 of Representation of People Act-1951", her election petition submits.

Against this backdrop, Gandhi has contended that the result of the election, so far as it relates to Nishad, has been materially affected by the non-compliance of the provisions of the Constitution of C India, the Representation of People Act-1951 and the conduct of Election Rules-1961, as well as the orders issued under R.P. Act 1951 and the Election Commission of India time to time.