SC reserves verdict on plea of Fadnavis to review order asking him to face trial
   Date :19-Feb-2020

SC reserves verdict on pl
 
 
THE Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ plea seeking review of its 2019 judgement ask￾ing the BJP leader to face trial for allegedly failing to furnish details of pending criminal cases against him in his 2014 poll affidavit.
 
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Fadnavis, told a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra the issue will have very far reaching consequences for other candidates fighting elec￾tions and the top court needs to re-examine its October 1, 2019 decision. In its judgment last year, the apex court had set aside the Bombay High Court order which gave a clean chit to Fadnavis and held that he did not deserve to be tried for the alleged offence under the Representation of Peoples Act (RPA). During arguments, Rohatgi said a candidate can be criminally prosecuted for violating the two conditions of not disclosing cases where charges have been framed and where he or she has been con￾victed.
 
“This will seal my fate. It is an important question as it affects Article 21. This is a mat￾ter which requires a re-look,” Rohatgi told the bench, also com￾prising Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose. The apex court’s verdict had come on an appeal by one Satish Ukey, who had challenged the High Court’s order. On July 23, 2019 the top court, while reserving the verdict on Ukey’s plea, had said that the alleged ‘omission’ by Fadnavis of not disclosing information about two criminal cases in his election affidavit may be decid￾ed in the trial.
 
The apex court had said that it was concerned with a limit￾ed issue whether prima facie Section 125A of the RP Act is attracted or not. The provision deals with the penalty for‘filing false affidavit’ and says that if a candidate or his proposer fails to furnish or gives false or conceals any infor￾mation in his nomination paper on issues like pending criminal cases then the person may be awarded six months jail term or fine or both.