HC rejects Sushma Swaraj's plea to dismiss an election petition filed against her

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Tuesday rejected the application of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj demanding dismissal of an election petition filed against her by Congress nominee Rajkumar Patel from Vidisha during the last Lok Sabha polls.

Sushma Swaraj's application was rejected on Tuesday, which means that the election petition against her would be listed for regular hearing. The application was rejected by the bench of Justice KK Lohati on the ground that objections raised by the applicant (Swaraj) was about evidences and that could be addressed while taking up the petition.

Patel's nomination was rejected from Vidisha seat on the last day of nomination during the 2009 Lok Sabha polls after he failed to submit the necessary documents (Form-B) on time to the District Electoral Officer.

Later, the Congress nominee filed an election petition alleging the District Electoral Officer had wrongly rejected his nomination papers and demanded annulment of Sushma Swaraj's election.

In his petition, Patel claimed his representative was inside the Electoral Office well before the stipulated time and the same could be verified from video-recording of the process of filing nominations.

However, Swaraj filed an application objecting to Patel's petition on the ground that it was baseless and also for not providing certified copies of the petition and relevant orders of the High Court and the Supreme Court.

On October 22, Justice Lahoti watched the compact disc of the video recording of the nomination process and reserved his judgement on the matter.