Supreme Court Upholds HC Order, Rejects Allegations Against Nitin Gadkari

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order.

We are of the view that the order dated 26 November 2021 passed by the Bombay High Court warrants no interference. The civil appeals are dismissed. Since the matter pertains to a Lok Sabha election, we request the high court to dispose of the pending petitions expeditiously," the court held.

The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court had allowed Gadkari’s application under Order VI Rule 16 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) and struck off certain pleadings on the grounds of lack of material facts and vague allegations.

At the outset, the top court went through the various averments made in election petitions that had challenged the 2019 Lok Sabha election of the returned candidate.

While referring to the first averment made in the election petition concerning a property which Gadkari declared as belonging to a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), the court clarified that although the property stands in his name, he has consistently claimed it to be HUF property and that a trust deed had also been executed to that effect. Therefore, the court held that this particular issue couldn't be examined in an election petition.

Concurring with the reasoning assigned by the high court, the apex court held,

"This brings us to the next averment made in the election petition, which alleges that the agricultural land owned by the spouse of the returned candidate was not fully described. The High Court ordered this objection to be struck off after noting that the information furnished by the returned candidate could not be said to be incomplete, as the survey number and location of the land were fully disclosed. There is, thus, no concealment of fact. We concur with the reasoning assigned by the High Court".

Regarding the third allegation in the election petition, which concerned the income tax returns submitted by the returned candidate, it was alleged that he was earning more than what was disclosed. The court opined, "In any case, it seems to us that the Returning Officer is only required to verify whether true copies of the income tax returns have been filed or not. The duty to scrutinise nomination papers does not extend to sitting in appeal over the assessment orders passed by the Income Tax authorities. Similarly, the allegation of non-disclosure by the returned candidate has rightly been considered by the High Court as a vague averment, lacking the specific nature of allegation and material facts".

Case Title: Md. Nafis v. Nitin Gadkari