Lucknow : The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking direction to declare election of 10 Rajya Sabha members in 2020 as null and void.
The petition was filed by Samajwadi Party-supported candidate Prakash Bajaj, after his nomination was rejected.
While dismissing the petition, the Single-Judge Lucknow Bench of Justice Jaspreet Singh said, “The petitioner is not a duly nominated candidate, nor can he claim to be a duly nominated candidate at an election, hence, it creates an insurmountable hurdle for the petitioner to maintain this petition.
“For the foregoing reasons, this Court has no hesitation to hold that the challenge raised by the respondents to the election petition must succeed and the election petitioner not being a duly nominated candidate is not entitled to maintain the election petition. Ergo, the election petition is dismissed in exercise of powers under Order VII Rule 11 CPC, with no order as to costs,” it added.
Earlier, the court gave all the respondents (elected Rajya Sabha members) to file their objections and applications. The petitioner had sought direction to declare the election null and void, claiming that his nomination was rejected in an improper way and that of the respondents was accepted in an improper way, which was against the tenets of law.
Arun Singh, Geeta Shakya, Hardeep Puri, Haradwar Dubey, Seema Dwivedi, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal and BL Verma of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Ramji of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were made respondents in the petition.
