SC agrees to hear Delhi ex-law minister’s plea against quashing of his election

HC had declared Jitender Tomar’s election from Tri Nagar as void

Tribune Web Desk

Updated At : 03:04 AM Jul 22, 2020 IST

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 21

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear ex-Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar’s petition against the Delhi High Court’s verdict quashing his 2015 election to the legislative assembly for furnishing false information on his educational qualifications.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde issued notice to the respondents, including the candidates who lost that election to Tomar and the returning officer, asking them to file their replies to his petition seeking to overturn the HC verdict.

The Delhi High Court had on January 17 declared Tomar’s election from Delhi’s Tri Nagar assembly constituency in the 2015 polls as “void”.

It said false declaration about his educational qualification that he had obtained an LLB degree resulted in “inducement and thwarted free exercise of electoral right of the voter”.

The high court “erroneously held that the appellant (Tomar) had not lawfully obtained his LLB degree and was not duly enrolled as an advocate at the time of filing his nomination, and further held that nomination of the appellant was improperly accepted,” the former Delhi law minister contended in his petition.

He contended that on date of declaration in his nomination form he was holding a valid and subsisting LLB degree awarded by Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University in 1999.

“The high court ought not have given the finding that the appellant (Tomar) had not lawfully obtained LLB degree and was not duly enrolled as an advocate at the time of filing his nomination as a criminal trial on the subject matter is presently ongoing before the trial court,” he submitted.

The high court’s verdict had come on an election petition filed by BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg who alleged that Tomar’s 2015 election was “materially affected by deliberate concealment, misrepresentation, wrong declaration and wilful suppression of the educational qualification in the affidavit filed along with the nomination form”.