The Supreme Court has agreed to hear in open court the review petition moved by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis against the court’s verdict, setting aside the clean chit given to the BJP leader in an electoral malpractice case.
A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose passed its order to this effect on Thursday.
In October last year, the apex court had “unhesitatingly” held that a case was made out for the prosecution of Fadnavis in the case in which he had been accused of suppressing two criminal cases in his nomination papers for the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly polls
Petitioner Satish Ukey had sought the former Chief Minister’s disqualification as a legislator for not disclosing details of the two criminal cases, saying it was mandatory for a candidate to furnish such information.
According to the Representation of Peoples Act, a person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years shall be disqualified from contesting elections for that period and a further six years after release.
Earlier, a Nagpur judicial magistrate had dismissed Ukey’s plea after which he approached the sessions court, which directed the judicial magistrate to reconsider the decision.
Fadnavis challenged the sessions court decision before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, which dismissed the case by upholding the judicial magistrate’s order.
Ukey then challenged the high court’s decision in the Supreme Court.