HC points mistakes in Bharti's plea against Swaraj, asks to file it again

The Delhi High Court on Monday pointed out several mistakes in AAP leader Somnath Bharti's petition challenging BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj's election in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls on grounds of alleged corrupt practices, and asked him to file a corrected one.

Justice Manmeet PS Arora said at the outset that there were a lot of typographical errors which made it difficult to understand the averments in the petition.

Even the reference to respondents in the petition did not correlate with the respondents mentioned in the memo of parties and synopsis, the counsel said.

The court gave Bharti 10 days to file a corrected petition and listed the matter for further hearing on August 14.

When Bharti's counsel urged the court to issue notice to the respondents on the petition, the judge said, "There are too many mistakes. Correct the petition first. I can't issue notice like this. I will simply adjourn it. Please file a corrected petition."

Both Bharti and Swaraj contested from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat.

While Bharti secured 3,74,815 votes, Swaraj got 4,53,185 votes as per the returning officer, the plea said.

The petition, filed under under Section 80 and 81 of the Representation of the People Act, alleged corrupt practices by Swaraj, her election agent and other persons.

The plea also alleged that former AAP minister Raaj Kumar Anand contested the election on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket to help Swaraj by cutting into the vote share. Later, on July 10, he joined the BJP, the plea said.

It said Anand was a minister in the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi and was active in campaigning for Bharti till April 9 and suddenly resigned from the party on April 10.

On election day, the petitioner was shocked during his visits to booths across the constituency to see that Swaraj's booth agents had pamphlets displaying her ballot number, photo, election symbol and photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "was showing the same to the voters who had lined up in the booth to vote and asking them to vote for Ballot no.1", the plea claimed.

"...such an act certainly qualifies to be a corrupt practice. This was also reported to the respondent no. 3 (returning officer) but all in vain," it alleged.