New Delhi, Feb 26 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to entertain an appeal against an order which dismissed a petition challenging the election of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia from Patparganj in the 2020 assembly polls.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia told Pratap Chandra that his appeal against a single judge’s decision was not maintainable in the high court as the Representation of the People Act provided that it ought to be filed in the Supreme Court.
“How this LPA (letters patent appeal or an intra-court appeal) is maintainable? Can LPAs be filed against election petitions? The appeal will lie in Supreme Court. If you want to challenge the order, appeal goes to the Supreme Court,” it observed.
The appellant consequently withdrew his appeal.
The appeal is dismissed as withdrawn, the court said.
The single judge, on January 17, had ruled that Chandra, who contested against Sisodia as a Rashtriya Rashtrawadi Party candidate, had failed to establish a specific cause of action in his election petition.
Sisodia won the seat after securing 70,163 votes. The petitioner had secured 95 votes.
The petitioner had contended that while he had strictly complied with the law and ceased from canvassing two days before the election, other political parties and candidates continued campaigning till the polling day, vitiating the electoral process and denying him a level-playing field.
He had also claimed that Sisodia had not disclosed the existence of a 2013 FIR against him registered under the Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act, 1971, in his nomination.
In its verdict, the court said the petitioner had only made “general allegations”, without laying down the material facts required in law, which went to the root of the maintainability of the election petition.
It said the photographs given by the petitioner to allege violation of the “silence period” before polls only showed generic party hoardings displaying just the party symbol and name, without any specific reference to Sisodia. PTI ADS ZMN
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