Gyanendra Kumar Tripathy (44), a resident of the airfield area, whose nomination papers were rejected by the Returning Officer of Bhubaneswar (North) Assembly Constituency for General Elections-2009, has moved the Supreme Court for passing an order to the Odisha High Court to fix a timeframe to dispose of his election petition at an early date.
Tripathy had filed the election petition in accordance with the provisions of Representation of People’s Act-1951 in June 2009 in the High Court against the alleged illegal rejection of his nomination papers. To counter his case, the opposite party had filed a misc. case in high court for quashing of the case from the threshold. But the court dismissed the misc. case on April 18, 2012.
Here, the opposite party is Bhagirathi Badajena of the BJD, who was declared elected from the constituency.
later, the opposite party on May 10, 2012 went to the Supreme Court against this judgment on the misc. case arising out of the election petition. The apex court, examining the merits of the case, had dismissed the opposite party’s Special leave Petition on July 16, 2012.
“Under Section 86 (7) of the Representation of People’s Act-1951, it is clearly mentioned that every election petition is to be tried expeditiously and the case is to be disposed of within six months from the date of filing of the election case, but in no case this section is followed,” Tripathy lamented, adding, “Three years and 11 months have passed, but my case is still pending in the High Court and I am waiting for justice.”