SC Dismisses Tej Bahadur’s Plea Against Rejection of Nomination

The Election Commission had dismissed Tej Bahadur Yadav’s candidature from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

File image of Tej Bahadur Yadav.

(Photo: IANS)

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 9 May, dismisses plea of former BSF jawan and Samajwadi Party candidate Tej Bahadur Yadav against the rejection of his nomination from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

A Bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the plea and said, “We don’t find any merit to entertain this petition.”

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 8 May, asked the Election Commission to examine grievances raised by Yadav, whose nomination against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varansai, was cancelled.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had asked the counsel for EC to seek instructions and apprise it by Thursday, 9 May.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Yadav, referred to an earlier verdict to the court and said election petitions can be filed during the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct.

The former BSF jawan, who had moved the apex court on Monday, was fielded by the Samajwadi Party as its candidate from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting.

Bahadur was dismissed from BSF in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the quality of food served to the troops.

In his plea, Yadav termed the decision of the poll panel discriminatory and unreasonable and said it should be set aside. The poll panel had dismissed Yadav's nomination Wednesday, 1 May.

He was served notices by the Varanasi returning officer over “discrepancies” in the two sets of nomination papers submitted by him.

In the first set of papers on 24 April, he had mentioned that he was dismissed from the Border Security Force. On 29 April he had submitted a second set of papers as the SP nominee, but did not give out this information.

The SP had initially fielded Shalini Yadav as its candidate from Varanasi but later nominated the sacked BSF jawan.

(With inputs from PTI)