pera play Bombay HC Dismisses Amol Kirtikar's Plea, Upholds Ravindra Waikar's 48-Vote Victory In LS Polls

The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Amol Kirtikar challenging the 48-vote victory of rival Shiv Sena nominee Ravindra Waikar from a Lok Sabha seat in Mumbai in June, noting the allegations in the plea were "vague".

A single bench of Justice Sandeep Marne said no cause of action or reasonable grounds were made out to take the election petition to trial.

"In my view, the election petition does not disclose cause of action for making out any of the ground and therefore election petition cannot be taken to trial and is liable to be rejected," the court noted.

The Harmanpreet Singh-led side scored its first goal just in the second minute of the match via Sukhjeet Singh. This was in fact the first significant chance created in the match by any side.

Both teams started off strong, looking to break each others' back line in the first quarter but no team were able to breach the barrier.

Kirtikar, in his petition, had sought the HC to set aside Waikar's election as the member of Parliament from the Mumbai North-West constituency six months ago and to declare the same as "null and void".

He also sought to be declared as duly elected from the constituency.

The high court, in its order, observed that to maintain an election petition and to take it to the stage of trial, the allegations must constitute a complete cause of action.

"Failure on the part of the election petitioner to raise necessary pleadings to make out a case of existence of ground can lead to its dismissal," the HC noted.

The court maintained Kirtikar has thoroughly failed to raise necessary pleadings disclosing cause of action and added "averments made in the plea are vague."

Kirtikar, belonging to the Shiv Sena (UBT) headed by former CM Uddhav Thackeray, in his plea, claimed that on the counting day (June 4) itself, he filed an application seeking recount of votes as there was a "discrepancy".

He had lost to Waikar, the candidate of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, by a narrow margin of 48 votes from Mumbai North-West in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year. This was the lowest victory margin in Maharashtra.

While Waikar got 4,52,644 votes, Kirtikar bagged 4,52,596.

The Sena (UBT) leader, in his plea, claimed there were glaring and serious lapses on the part of elections officials deputed to carry out the counting process, which led to the poll result being materially affected.

"The election petitioner (Kirtikar) is aggrieved on account of the improper reception of void votes cast by 333 impersonators in place of genuine voters, along with breach of rules/orders, pertaining to the counting process, by ECI officials, which has materially affected the outcome of the election results," the plea alleged.

It further claimed the returning officer showed "high-handed hastiness and palpable arbitrariness" at the time of the counting of votes.

Kirtikar had also requested the court to summon video recordings of the entire counting process while hearing his plea.pera play