Jaipur, June 30 (IANS). Rajasthan High Court has rejected the election petition of Bayana’s independent MLA Ritu Banawat seeking cancellation of her election. The court said that the allegations made were not sufficient to invalidate the election mandate.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on MLA Ritu Banawat for deliberately trying to avoid court summons. Justice Sudesh Bansal gave this order on the petition of Purushottam Lal, a candidate from Bayana Assembly constituency in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly elections.
The High Court expressed strong displeasure over the behavior of MLA Ritu Banawat during the proceedings and said that she “deliberately and deliberately” adopted several methods to avoid receiving court summons. The Court noted that repeated attempts to serve the notice failed, forcing the High Court to adopt another method of serving the notice through the Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly.
Taking this behavior seriously, the High Court imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the MLA. The election petition alleged that Ritu Banawat had failed to provide full and correct information about her assets and liabilities while filing her nomination papers for the 2023 assembly elections.
The petitioner’s argument was that the information which was not disclosed came under the ambit of corrupt practices under the Election Act and on this basis his election should be cancelled. According to the petition, Purushottam Lal got 689 votes while Ritu Banawat won the Bayana seat by securing more than one lakh votes.
Senior advocate RN Mathur, appearing for Banawat, argued that all the important information required under the law was stated correctly. He said that it was not legally necessary to give information about bank accounts opened specifically for election expenses. He also argued that a housewife could also legitimately earn income from farming; Therefore, these allegations are baseless.
After considering these arguments, the High Court rejected the election petition and said that the information which was not disclosed was neither so important nor sufficient that the election could be declared invalid on their basis.
The court said that overturning the voters’ mandate on the basis of trivial, technical and non-essential deficiencies related to the assets of the elected candidate would have a serious impact on the democratic process.
With these observations, the High Court upheld Banawat’s election, while also directing him to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh for trying to avoid the court summons.
–IANS
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