A Division Bench of the Orissa High Court headed by Chief Justice Vineet Saran on Thursday granted an interim stay on an impugned order passed last month by a single-judge Bench of the court annulling the election of Independent Corporator Sukanti Subudhi of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
“The Bench of Chief Justice and Justice BR Sarangi stayed the operation of the order of July 28 passed by a single judge and allowed Ms Subudhi to continue as Corporator of BMC like before until further order,” said Subudhi’s counsel Bidyadhar Mishra.
On a writ petition filed by one Punam Parida, who had unsuccessfully contested the municipal elections in 2014, the High Court last month had annulled the election of Subudhi from Ward-18 on the grounds of “mismatch” in her name and educational information provided in her nomination papers and the accompanied affidavits.
Declaring the election of Subudhi as “null and void”, the court had also directed the Government to hold election to the vacant seat within two months. The Government, however, had not taken any initiative in this regard perhaps anticipating that Subudhi would challenge the order in a larger forum.