Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday set aside the election of independent MlA Paras Dada Saklecha from Ratlam in 2009 on the ground of leading a baseless and misleading campaign against his rival, former Minister Himmat Kothari of BJP. Justice Mool Chand Garg passed the order upon Kothari's election petition.
The HC held that Saklecha adopted unfair means in the campaign, violating Representation of People Act, 1951, said Kothari's lawyer Veer Kumar Jain. The court also ordered Saklecha to pay a cost of Rs 20,000 to Kothari.
According to petition, Saklecha had levelled allegations such as Kothari had indulged in corruption in purchase of guns, feed for peacocks and canes for policemen during his tenure as Home Minister, and had bought huge properties in Mumbai and Bangalore.
Hearing petition of Kothari, the justice RC Garg of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on the basis of recorded evidence and seeing a video of the meeting of the Election Commission found the charges of corruption levelled against Kotari as false and accordingly declared his election from the Ratlam assembly constituency as void.
Kothari in his petition before the High Court had alleged that Independent Ratlam MlA Paras Saklecha by spreading allegation against him during his stint as Minister during the course of electioneering in the last assembly elections had severely affected his poll prospect, leading to his defeat in the elections.
After examining statements of witnesses and video footage recorded by the Election Commission, court found that Kothari's petition had substance. While Saklecha had got 62,364 votes, Kothari had got 31,290.
Claiming that he has been victim of political conspiracy, Saklecha told mediapersons that he would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court, while former Home Minister Kothari termed this as victory of truth over lie. He stated that now, nobody would dare levelling baseless allegations during campaigning.