SC dashes poll hopes of Odisha Congress MLA, refuses to stay conviction in loan fraud case

CUTTACK: The Supreme Court Tuesday suspended the sentence of Barabati-Cuttack MLA Mohammed Moquim in the Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) loan fraud case, but did not stay his conviction, dashing his hopes of contesting the assembly elections next month.

The Representation of the People Act mandates the disqualification of MLAs sentenced to a jail term of two years or more, and also bars them from contesting elections for next six years.

MLA Mohammed Moquim, a first-timer, was awarded three years' imprisonment by a special vigilance court in Bhubaneswar on September 29, 2022.

The Congress legislator challenged the trial court order in the Orissa high court, which dismissed his appeal and cancelled Mohammed Moquim's bail on April 10.

Moquim then filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court. Hearing the plea on Tuesday, a bench of justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta took note of the submissions made by senior advocates S Muralidhar and Pitambar Acharya on Moquim's behalf, and issued notice to Odisha govt. The bench suspended Moquim's sentence and granted him bail.

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