AAP's Raghav Chadha withdraws plea against BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri

AAP leader Raghav Chadha on Wednesday withdrew from the high court here his plea challenging the decision of returning officer to accept the nomination papers of BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri, who won the Lok Sabha polls from South Delhi, and was granted liberty to file an election petition.

The petition came up for hearing before Justice A J Bhambhani who allowed the submission of Chadha's counsel to withdraw the petition with a liberty to file an election petition.

"The petition is dismissed as withdrawn," the judge said.

Chadha had claimed in his plea that the returning officer (RO) overlooked "glaring discrepancies in Bidhuri's nomination" and it was accepted without application of mind on the grounds that they do not have any power to reject a nomination once an affidavit is filed, regardless of any concealment therein.

Bidhuri and Chadha had contested from the South Delhi constituency. Bidhuri won by over 3.6 lakh votes.

Advocate R Arunadhri Iyer, representing Chadha, told the court that his instruction was to withdraw the petition and that the petitioner be granted liberty to file an election petition.

The AAP leader, in his plea, had said, "The respondent no 2 (Bidhuri) had willfully and intentionally concealed the factum of registration of an FIR against him in Police Station... Muzaffarpur, Bihar, under sections 504, 506, 153 and 153(a) of the IPC."