HC adjourns hearing on petition challenging election of UP BJP MLA

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on a petition challenging the election of an Uttar Pradesh BJP lawmaker to next week.

The petition alleged that UP cabinet minister S P Singh Baghel had procured a Scheduled Caste (SC) certificate, despite belonging to the Other Backward Class (OBC), and contested a reserved seat, Tunda, in the last year's state Assembly polls.

Justice M C Tripathi today adjourned the hearing to next Monday while hearing the petition, filed last year by Prem Pal Singh, a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate, who had also contested from the Tundla seat.

The counsel for the BJP MLA had requested the court to adjourn the hearing, saying that Baghel's reply was "under preparation" and a copy of it would be served to the petitioner's counsel within three days.

Last May, the court had issued a notice to the cabinet minister and had directed the minister to submit his defence by way of a written statement, along with a list of documents.