Court refuses to issue notice to Modi in poll affidavit matter

A local court today turned down a plea for issuance of notice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi here for allegedly hiding information about his marital status in an election affidavit in 2012 assembly election.
Additional Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad district court G N Rana rejected the plea by an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member seeking issuance of notices to Modi and Maninagar seat's returning officer in 2012 P K Jadeja under Section 401(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to give them an opportunity to be heard.
The court refused to issue notice on the ground that the magisterial court had not started the legal process under Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) Section 204 in the case.

Under Section 204, a court can issue summons or notice to an accused person to initiate legal proceedings.
As BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Gujarat, Modi had contested assembly elections from Maninagar assembly seat in 2012, where he had left the column of his spouse blank.
However, in Lok Sabha elections of 2014, Modi disclosed his wife's name as Jashodaben for the first time in his affidavit while filing nomination from Vadodara seat.

The plea was filed by AAP member Nishant Verma, seeking registration of an FIR against Modi for allegedly hiding his marital status in his affidavit filed before the returning officer during the 2012 Gujarat Assembly elections.

During the progress of the case, Verma also filed a second plea requesting the court to issue notice to Modi, which was rejected by the court today.
Verma's advocate K R Koshti had argued that the court should issue notices to the opponents, Modi and Jadeja, to give them an opportunity to be heard, so that proceedings or order which may be passed by the court, would not be rendered ineffective.
The Gujarat government had objected to Verma's plea and submitted before court that the stage has not yet come for notices to be issued to them.