Supreme Court
NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with an order passed by the Bombay HC which had dismissed a petition challenging the validity of the entire Maharashtra assembly elections held last year on the allegation of bogus voting.HC had rejected the plea filed by a voter on the ground that he did not place any evidence to substantiate his allegation of bogus voting and also that a writ petition cannot be filed to challenge an election as it has to be done through an election petition. Petitioner Chetan Ahire then moved SC against the HC order. A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N K Singh, however, dismissed the appeal filed by Ahire.HC had in its order said, “There is nothing on record that at any polling station in the State of Maharashtra, any untoward incident/fraud had taken place. We, hence, fail to discern as to how, in the absence of any tangible material acceptable in law, which also needs to be booth wise, that there was any fraudulent voting or there was no voting.”It also said that the petition was sans any tangible material whatsoever and also pulled up the petitioner for poor drafting of petition, as he impleaded the Election Commission with the nomenclature as “Chief Election Commission of India”, and SEC by describing such respondent as “Chief Electoral Officer, the State Election Commission”. There were no such entities for a writ to be issued, the HC had said.”There is no other material whatsoever, much less of any authenticity, to the effect that there was any malpractice, fraud or complaint of any nature in regard to the voting at the closing hours of the poll i.e. at about 6 pm, not by the voters who were not in queue. We are of the clear opinion that merely on political opinions or on unsubstantiated newspaper reports, a petition under Article 226 cannot at all be maintained,” HC had said.
