Delhi court asks EC to authenticate Irani's affidavits

A court here on Thursday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file a certificate to authenticate the election affidavits filed in court by Union Minister Smriti Irani on her educational qualifications.

Metropolitan Magistrate Harvinder Singh asked the ECI to send an official along with a certificate after observing that the affidavits exhibited in court were a copy of the electronic record available on the commission's website.

The court adjourned the matter to October 15.

The Election Commission had earlier submitted documents that were a copy of the file extracted from its official website.

At that time, the commission told the court that Irani's original 2004 election affidavit was misplaced, the complainant's counsel told the media outside court.

The court was hearing a private complaint by Ahmer Khan, who accused Irani of submitting varying details about her educational qualifications in her three affidavits filed before the Election Commission for the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha polls held in 2004, 2011 and 2014.

Khan, who filed the complaint in April last year, sought action against Irani on charge of lying on oath about her educational qualifications.

His counsels K.K. Manan and Anjali Rajput alleged that the BJP leader declared herself to be a 1996-batch graduate from Delhi University's School of Correspondence in her affidavit filed for the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Delhi's Chandni Chowk constituency.

But in her affidavit for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, when she contested from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, she allegedly said she did her B.Com. (Part I) in 1994 from Delhi University's School of Open Learning.

Khan said that in yet another affidavit filed on July 11, 2011, for the Rajya Sabha election from Gujarat, she said her highest educational qualification was B.Com (Part I) from Delhi University's School of Correspondence.

--IANS

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