SC squashes plea against Bihar CM Nitish Kumar over charges of murder case in pre-nomination document

Patna, March 19: Citing the Public Interest Litigation filed by advocate M.L. Sharma challenging Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s membership to the Bihar State Legislative Council, the Supreme Court has dismissed the plea today. The Supreme Court today dismissed a PIL seeking disqualification of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for “not disclosing” an FIR against him in a murder case in pre-nomination affidavits.

 

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra dismissed the petition for being devoid of any merit.

Representative of the Election Commission of India, Amit Sharma, had submitted before the court that Nitish Kumar was indebted to reveal any criminal record against him only after acquaintance of an alleged offence is taken by a magistrate, and that he had made such disclosure in 2012 in the prescribed form.

The Election Commission also informed the court that no such disclosure was required to be made by Nitish Kumar post 2012, as he did not contest any election.

The PIL was filed in July, 2017 by M.L.Sharma seeking cancellation of the membership for allegedly concealing a pending criminal case against him. He further claimed that the Bihar Chief Minister did not disclose information on the pending criminal case while filing his nomination on more than one occasion since 2004, except for 2012.

The Election Commission had on an earlier occasion called the PIL “frivolous”, “based on incorrect facts” and “without any cogent evidence”.

An FIR was registered before a police station in Patna district against Nitish Kumar for charges of murder in November 1991. The cognizance of the offence took place in August 2008. The Patna high court in April 2009 had stayed “further proceedings” in the case before the magistrate.