The Chhattisgarh High Court has imposed a fine of Rs5,000 on Amit Jogi, the son of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi for non-compliance of its earlier orders in connection with an election petition that challenged his election from Marwahi Assembly segment in the Assembly polls here on Monday. Even though Amit Jogi won the Assembly polls with a huge margin, his main rival candidate from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — Sameera Paikra — moved the High Court in Bilaspur seeking direction to set aside his election alleging that he won the election through corruption and other malpractices.
The court then served notices on Jogi seeking his reply on the charges. Jogi allegedly did not respond to the notice, even after several reminders. Subsequently, the information about the court notice was also published in the local news papers to draw his attention and let him to become party to the case as he being the first respondent, but to no avail. The court, finally on February 3, decided to dispose of the case ex-parte and posted its hearing for Monday following appeal from the petitioner’s counsel. However, when the case came up for hearing, advocate Shailendra Shukla joined the trial on behalf of Jogi and urged the court to set aside its decision to go ahead with the ex-parte trial. The bench of Justice Goutam Bhanduri irked over the behavior of Jogi imposed fine of Rs5000 on him. The court is due to slap further notices on the person.