Papers of AAP candidate Dhall accepted, Congress to move HC

A day after the scrutiny of nomination papers by returning officers (ROs) for the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation, it came to fore on Saturday that the papers of Amit Dhall, AAP candidate from Ward No. 24 and former councillor, have been accepted.

Though officials accepted his papers on Friday, the details of the same were shared on Saturday morning.

Gurpreet Singh, RO for Ward No. 22 to 28 and XeN with the Jalandhar Development Authority, accepted his papers citing the ground that his sentence had been suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 29, 2015.

Quoting a relevant Section in his order, he said: “As per Section 8 (3) of Chapter 18 (ii) of the handbook for returning officers for municipal elections, a person convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since the release”.

His order further read: “As per the section, the person must be convicted as well as sentenced. In the present case, the person is convicted but his sentence has been suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in September 2015. So as per the handbook, the section is not applicable. So, accordingly, the objection is not valid.”

On the issue, Congress leaders, including party candidate from the same ward and ex-councillor Satish Dhir, District Congress Committee chief Rajinder Beri and Jalandhar North MLA Bawa Henry said: “We are not satisfied with the response. Accordingly, we have written to the District Election Officer, State Election Commission and the Election Commission of India. On Monday, we will move the Punjab and Haryana High Court and seek cancellation of his papers.”

Henry said: “There were two grounds in our petition. One was that Dhall had concealed being convicted in two FIRs. He only mentioned about FIR no. 129 of 2009. He concealed the fact that there was another FIR no. 130 against him under which he was convicted with a punishment for three years and there was no suspension of stay over conviction in this case. Our demand is that Dhall should be booked for concealment of second FIR in the copy of his affidavit”.

Henry maintained that under FIR no. 129, he was sentenced for up to two years of imprisonment and for FIR no. 130, he was sentenced for up to three years of imprisonment for violation of Section 148 of the IPC.

He said: “The part of our petition mentioning concealment of an FIR and about no stay on sentence on second FIR have been concealed. We need justice and we are hopeful of cancellation of his nomination by Monday.”