The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis based on an appeal that alleged that he had concealed pendency of two criminal cases against him in the affidavit he filed while contesting the 2014 assembly elections.
The appeal filed by advocate Satish Ukey alleges the CM concealed information on two criminal cases pending against him. He has alleged that the CM Fadnavis didn’t provide information about these two pending cases in the affidavit that he had filed along with the nomination papers for the State Assembly elections in 2014. However, Ukey had brought this offence to notice by filing a petition in the court of Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Nagpur on September 2015. The Judicial Magistrate though had dismissed the petition.
Ukey had then approached the Sessions Court, which had directed the Judicial Magistrate to reconsider its decision. On this, Fadnavis had challenged the Sessions Court decision in Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court, which had dismissed the case by upholding the Judicial Magistrate’s decision. Ukey then challenged the High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.
It may be recalled that that a case under Section 34 of the IPC was registered against Devendra Fadnavis in 1996. One more case under Sections 217, 218, 425, 420, 466, 467, 468, 470, 474, 506, 109 and 506 of the IPC was registered against him in 2003.
–India Legal Bureau