HC adjourns hearing on Naveen's poll expenses row

The Orissa High Court today adjourned to Monday the hearing on a bunch of pleas alleging discrepancies in the poll expenses of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his party BJD.
The bench of Justice S K Mishra adjourned the hearing till July 31 when the counsel for various parties, including the one for the Election Commission (EC), would resume their arguments.
The high court earlier had issued notice to the Election Commission on a plea by Odisha native Subash Mohapatra, who has alleged gross discrepancies in sworn statements on poll expenses of Patnaik and his party.
In his plea, filed in June last year, Mohapatra has urged the EC to take action against Patnaik and his party BJD for "misleading the EC through the false affidavits."

Mohapatra, meanwhile, through his counsel Narendra Hooda, filed another application to the court seeking the deletion of the formal respondents in the original petition.
The three formal respondents are Odisha chief electoral officer, Ganjam district electoral officer and Naveen Patnaik.
Seeking a direction to the EC for early disposal of his representation to it, Mohapatra in his petition had arraigned the three as formal respondents while the EC was the main respondent.