SC to Hear on Oct 11 EC Appeal Against HC Order Setting Aside Disqualification of MP Minister Mishra

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on October 11 the Election Commission’s appeal against the Delhi High Court order which had set aside its 2017 decision to disqualify Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra as an MLA.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal refused to accept the contention of senior advocate Aryama Sundaram, appearing for Mishra, that the plea be heard after November. The assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh are likely around November.

The bench said an application has also been filed by Congress leader Rajendra Bharti, who Mishra had defeated, seeking urgent hearing of the matter.

Sundaram said there is no urgency in the matter as the high court’s decision is of 2018 and it can be heard even after the assembly elections get over. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Bharti, however, pleaded that the matter needed to be heard before the assembly elections get underway.

The bench then fixed October 11 for hearing the Election Commission’s plea against the Delhi High Court order. The high court had on May 18, 2018 set aside the poll panel’s decision to disqualify Mishra on charges of paid news, saying there was no proof to show he incurred expenses, directly or indirectly, on the news articles favouring him.

The EC had disqualified Mishra for three years on June 23, 2017 over charges of paid news and held him guilty of filing wrong election expenditure accounts in relation to articles and advertorials published in media during the 2008 state assembly polls.

The high court had said the poll panel could not have inferred an implied authorisation of the news reports by Mishra merely because he had knowledge of the articles and he did not disavow the benefit arising from them.

The high court had said the rule of law required that all conclusions of tribunals or courts are to be based on facts established by evidence. “Therefore, assumption-based stipulative decisions are to be avoided,” it had said.

It also said the content of news features on particular candidates should “ordinarily not be regulated indirectly through the directives of the EC”.

The EC’s order had come on a complaint by Rajendra Bharti, who had contested the 2008 assembly polls against Mishra and was defeated.

While disqualifying him from contesting elections for three years, the poll panel had used some strong words against paid news, calling it a “cancerous menace” that was assuming “alarming proportions” in the electoral landscape.

The Election Commission had said in its order that all 42 news items that had appeared in five Hindi dailies involving Mishra during the elections were “extremely biased” in his favour.

Mishra, who won from Datia assembly constituency, had moved the Supreme Court on July 12, 2017, against the EC decision, claiming there was a delay in the proceedings and there was no evidence to show he had authorised paid news articles.

The apex court had transferred the matter to the Delhi High Court to be decided expeditiously before the July 17, 2017, presidential poll.

A single judge of the Delhi High Court had on July 14, 2017, upheld the EC’s decision. Mishra’s plea for an interim stay against the order to enable him to vote in the presidential election was declined by a division bench on July 16, 2017. He had, thereafter, moved to the apex court.

The top court had on July 28, 2017, kept the poll panel’s decision in abeyance and requested a division bench of the Delhi High Court to expeditiously hear his appeal. The division bench allowed Mishra’s appeal and set aside the Election Commission’s decision disqualifying him.

The BJP leader had contended before the high court that the EC’s order disqualifying him pertained to an election in 2008 and his subsequent tenure from 2013 would remain unaffected.