The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Gujarat High Court verdict declaring the election of former state law minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama as void.
A Bench headed by Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar also issued notice in the plea filed against the High Court judgment.
Senior Advocates Harish Salve and NeerajKishanKaul appeared for the minister in the case heard via video conferencing.
On May 13, Chudasama moved the Supreme Court in appeal after the Gujarat High Court had quashed his December 2017 election to the state’s Legislative Assembly
A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chudasama had won the December 2017 Gujarat State Assembly elections against Congress candidate AshwinbhaiKhamsubhaiRathod, by a margin of 327 votes.
In his appeal filed through Advocate EC Agrawala, Chudasamahas contended, “High Court has failed to appreciate the proper facts of the case and has reached a completely erroneous conclusion in holding the successful election of the Petitioner as illegal and void.”
The appeal which was filed under Section-116A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 stated that as far as illegal rejection of 429 postal ballots was concerned the high court did not consider Rule 54-A of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 clearly draws a distinction between postal ballot and vote.
Rathod had contested the validity of the election results before the high court contending that 429 postal ballot papers had illegally been excluded during the vote count by Returning Officer Dhaval Jani. Rathod further argued that election records had also been tampered to conceal this manipulation.
Justice Paresh Upadhyay of the Gujarat High Court in case of Bhupendrasinh Chudasama had ruled,
“…it is proved that 429 postal ballot papers were illegally rejected/excluded from consideration by the Returning Officer at the time of counting of votes in the election in question, as against the victory margin of 327 votes.”
While setting aside, stating that the result of the election has been materially affected by the “illegal rejection” of 429 votes, the Gujarat high court set aside the election of Chudasama as being void under several provisions of the Representation of People Act.
