HC sets aside Khagaria MP's election

PATNA: The Patna high court has set aside the election of Dinesh Chandra Yadav as JD-U MP from Khagaria parliamentary constituency in 2009, saying the ground on which the nomination paper of CPI candidate Satya Narayan Prasad Singh was rejected was not legally sound.
Allowing the election petition of Singh, a single bench presided by Justice V N Sinha on Wednesday directed the Election Commission to take steps for holding byelection to the seat.
The returning officer (RO) had rejected Singh's nomination on the ground that the declaration on his criminal antecedents was not accompanied with an affidavit in Form 26. Singh submitted in the court that the RO did not tell him to file such an affidavit. Justice Sinha held that Form 26 was not a part of the nomination paper and, therefore, a minor defect in it could not be the ground for rejecting the nomination paper.
Petitioner's counsel Prabhat Kumar Verma, Ujjawal Kumar Sinha and Laxmikant Tiwari submitted that the RO should have instructed petitioner Singh at the time of filing the nomination paper to get the declaration certified by notary public as per rules.
Appearing for Yadav, counsel S B K Mangalam submitted it was on the basis of a Supreme Court ruling that an amendment was made by Parliament to Section 33A of the Representation of People's Act for declaration of criminal antecedents by candidates in Form 26. The Conduct of Election Rules provided that Form 26 should be filed along with a proper affidavit. "The Representation of People's Act read with the election rules makes it clear that a candidate filing nomination paper for a parliamentary election must file Form 26 with a proper affidavit," Mangalam said.