Orissa HC dismisses Titlagarh poll petition, imposes penalty

The Orissa High Court today dismissed an election petition filed under Representation of People's Act and imposed Rs one lakh as penalty on the petitioner for taking the court's time and failure to depose before the court.
Justice Biswanath Rath dismissed the petition of former MLA and Congress leader Surendra Singh Bhoi challenging the election of Titlagarh BJD MLA Tukuni Sahu.
The HC further imposed a penalty of Rs one lakh on the petitioner as cost for his failure to appear before the single bench on the appointed day to give evidence despite seeking repeated adjournments beforehand.
Bhoi had filed the petition after losing to Sahu in last year's Assembly election.

The Congress leader had then contended that the process of Sahu's election and the counting of votes were not taken up properly in his constituency.
The HC observed that the petitioner seemed busy in delaying the case, somehow or the other, not allowing the HC to proceed with the trial and hence should be asked to recover the cost for loss of valuable time.