The Supreme Court of India has today rejected a plea seeking disqualification of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Satyendar Jain from Delhi Assembly for being of unsound mind
A bench of Justice SK Kaul and Justice AS Oka during the course of hearing said that the plea was frivolous in nature. The court also imposed costs of ₹20,000 on the petitioner, who is a member of the All India Professional Congress.
The plea was an appeal against an order by the Delhi High Court which said that that it could not declare Jain a person of unsound mind based on the arguments made in a public interest litigation (PIL) petition.
The High Court had noticed that that many cases have been registered against Jain and he was facing prosecution for various offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Prevention of Corruption Act as well as Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) is a complete code in itself which provides a mechanism in respect of investigation, inquiry and trial.
The petitioner had asked the High Court for constituting a medical board for analysing Jain’s mental condition and for a direction to be issued to the Delhi government for declaring all the decisions taken by Jain after he suffered from COVID-19 as null and void.
Jain in his statement had informed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers that due to severe after-effects of COVID-19, he doesn’t remember things like his signature and the trusts or organisations of which he is a member.
The plea argued that as per the Indian Constitution Article 191(1)(b) , a person will be disqualified from being a member of legislative assembly or legislative council if he or she is of unsound mind and the same is declared by a competent court.
There is another plea by the Minister(Jain) before the Supreme Court which challenges a transfer of his bail plea in a money laundering case where the judge was changed at the final stage of judgement.